Prodigal
by fluidstatic
Summary: He runs from his past, but it doesn't change. This time, he'll turn to face it. An FFXII novelization/AU.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

_An Apartment above Kaff Terrace - Bhujerba_

Balthier lay in bed, a glass of wine on the bedside table and a fountain pen in his hand. Fran was out at the market, and to pass the time while waiting for her to return, he had unrolled a map of the Lhusu mines over the counterpane.

In the far northwestern corner of the map was a circle, marking the widely-rumored location of a skystone that had been confiscated from the Ondore family treasury in the last century. Balthier had scratched out the indicated spot – The pirate Dolas had gone scouting the previous year with this map and found an empty coffer. Now Balthier was mapping the way East from the spot, playing a logic game with himself as he went. There was a vein of rare Jagd-proof skystone somewhere in the eastern dig, and he had only to find it. His handwritten notes in the margin of the map were copious but clipped, abbreviated in horribly sloppy handwriting that only he and Fran would be able to decipher.

_Mgct mn brdg 2: Und. (Fran: Rs Mg?)_

He would have a fresh skystone for the Strahl, come Heth or Haldanas.

Fran's voice woke him from his concentration, a low velvet tone that trilled with the consonance of her native tongue.

"_Bal'thjr, a fo'e, kaseht n'qwe bat Nabudis de k'ret fjrn bes. Ne'quos nin danec."_

Balthier looked up from the map of Lhusu spread over the bed and smirked faintly in greeting, distracted.

"Not a single lock to pick... that skystone's good as ours. What was that about Nabudis?"

Fran set her paper parcel of foodstuffs on the table by the door and moved toward the bed, shaking her silver-white hair out of her eyes.

"Your confidence in our success is heartening, but perhaps you had best lay aside your pen and read this."

Balthier looked down at the map again, chewing the inside of his lip thoughtfully as he made yet another note in the corner of the parchment. "Can it wait?"

Fran sat on the bed beside her pirate lover and laid one slender finger on the end of his pen, a gentle request for him to still its flitting over the parchment.

"I am afraid it cannot."

Her voice was grave, and held a tone he'd not heard in some time. She was worried. When he looked up from the map at last, she twitched her nose in halfhearted satisfaction and threw a little parchment periodical onto the bed between them.

_* * *_

THE BHUJERBA CHRONICLE

17 TERRAMOON, 705 

ARCHADIAN ATTACK ON NABRADIA

_Nabudis Destroyed – Estimated 2 Million Dead_

_An explosion over Verdpale Palace has decimated the city of Nabudis. _

_Archadian military airships were seen flying over the city two hours before it went up in flames. Refugees from the outskirts of the royal city report seeing a flash of blue and gold light over the city before it ignited. In the aftermath of the fire, Nabradian militia were unable to enter the city to search for survivors, due to a mist storm more intense than any in written Galtean history. It is assumed that in the 60 kilometer radius of the inferno, there are no survivors. _

_It is widely agreed among refugees that the flagship of the attack unit was the origin of the explosion. The captain of Archadia's Sixth fleet and the man believed responsible for the explosion, Judge Magister Zecht, has been reported missing and is presumed dead. Subsequently Judge Magister Ghis, Archadia's diplomatic contingent to Dorstonis, has announced the closure of Archadia's borders, for security reasons. _

_As refugees from Nabradia arrive in Bhujerba by the hundreds, His Excellency Mqs. Ondore IV is currently in negotiations with His Honor Ghis to declare the citizenship of the newly displaced Nabradians as Bhujerbans. His Royal Highness Rasler Heios Nabradia, Commandant of Nabradia's Greenwing Armada, will be coronated in his late father's stead at a ceremony pending upon the re-allotment of the land between Dalmasca and Archadia._

_* * *_

Balthier closed his eyes and cursed. "That great, stupid lot of bloody buggering _bastards." _The thought of innocent Nabradians burned in their beds made him ill, and he couldn't bear to linger on the thought of thousands – no, millions – of civilian casualties in such a raid. Fran twitched her nose at the scent of Balthier's anger. After a pause she flicked one of her velvet-soft, black tipped ears, and pointed a long shell-pink fingernail at the end of the first paragraph of the article he had just read.

"What would cause a mist storm so strong that a mage could not cast a paling shield against it?"

Balthier chewed his cheek, sobered by the question. It was not something he cared to think about; he had left behind the thorny paradoxes of military engineering when he left home. But then, through the murk of his reluctance, Balthier remembered a flash of blue and gold, small and violent like an electrical shortage in a jar, and in his mind's ear he heard a low, dark chuckle of delight. _"What glories a man can find hidden in the depths of the merest of stones... How wonderfully fascinating."_

"I believe the question is not what, but whom, my heart," Balthier muttered.

Fran nodded once with a resolute blink of her eyes. He put down his pen and leaned toward her.

"You've already deduced what I'm thinking, haven't you?"

Fran flicked one ear toward the window of their apartment, indicating the market below. "Vieran refugees from the Nabradian crisis zone are arriving in droves, and many of them are quite ill. The only thing that could disable a Viera to the point that I have seen in the market today is mist sickness. And the only cause for mist sickness is over-concentration..."

"Which can only mean Nethicite. He's done it, the bastard."

Fran nodded again, and her eyes darkened with a shade of wine-red that spoke of foreboding.

"_Ka'gre mec?"_

_We are ready?_

Balthier didn't reply for a moment. His eyes darkened. "When is anyone ready for Cidolphus Demen Bunansa? But then, Father's machinations never were transparent to anyone but myself. I suppose it falls to me to put and end to this nonsense... If that is indeed what you're suggesting."

"I am," she said. "Now is the time, if ever there were such."

"Hn," he grunted, and turned his eyes back to the map unrolled over the bed. Perhaps it was time to plan a different sort of heist...


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_The Royal City of Rabanastre _

_24 THUNDRAMOON, 706 _

_(Six Months after the fall of Nabudis)_

When Fran opened the engine room door, Balthier briefly wondered if it was his birthday and he'd forgotten - a beautiful steel and copper machine sat in the middle of the room, propped on a kickstand just beside the engine block. All curves and clean lines, it gleamed in the dimness of the cramped space, lending the room a strange overfilled quality that made Balthier feel as though he had stumbled across a safe deposit box without a lock.

"A hovercycle... and is it a Bhujerban model? Ah, Fran... My heart, my jewel, my everything. I could kiss you."

"Please do," Fran said.

He took her hand in both his own, pressing his lips tenderly to the palm of her hand, and she flicked one ear in amusement.

"_Tchuc a va'brec,"_ she admonished him – _kiss me properly_ – and bent to brush her lips against his. He chuckled against her mouth and tilted her chin downward with one thumb, playfully.

"Feeling rather proud of yourself, I see. You stole her on your own, didn't you?"

"But of course," she replied, eyes glinting. "How else are we to make a proper break on the palace this evening without means for a proper entrance?"

"I _adore _your logic," Balthier drawled, sauntering over to the hovercycle. "But tell me, how does it feel being the star player of your very own smash-and-grab, Fran?"

"You speak as though I have not stolen on my own lights before," Fran admonished.

"I won't believe a word of your exploits until I see you in action, my heart."

The hovercycle was a beautiful example of Bhujerban moogle aeronautic craft. Fran's concern over tactical problems had been quite correct; flying in on their target meant they could save their energy for the thornier problem of escape. Balthier circled the cycle slowly, contemplating its gear block, its brake configuration, its stealthy line and wide magicite well with pleasure.

"Are you nervous, Balthier?"

Balthier turned away from the hovercycle and frowned. "What makes you think I would be?"

"You make a bid to outrun Cidolphus to the stone. Had you forgotten?"

Balthier paused in thought, chewing the inside of his lip gravely. "I'm not going to run into my father tonight. It's not as if the old man would dare swoop in on Palace Galtea in the middle of one of Vayne's famous parties, after all. Even if a few of his scouts are waiting about for us somewhere in the palace, there's still time to make a clean escape."

"Be that as it may - In the end, we must stop running. Do you understand that?"

Her eyes had narrowed slightly, studying him, and her nose flared. What did she smell? Was she feeling him out for weakness, looking for an excuse to tell him not to pursue the stone?

"Fran. I have to do this," he said, for the hundredth time.

"I am aware," she replied, and to his relief, her tone was warm.

"Do you trust me?" he ventured.

"_A'nin carac a'lat,"_ she replied.

_I trust you always._

Gooseflesh rose on Balthier's arms at the look on her face - love mixed with fervor, gentleness with a hint of defiance. He never understood this expression when she deigned to use it, but it made him freeze, as if she knew something of his heart that he did not.

"The sun is going down," Balthier said vaguely, nodding toward the window.

"Then we must begin now, before it is too dark to see our way through the back alleys," Fran said decisively, and took the handlebars of the hovercycle, ready to lead it out of the ship.

She was so beautiful, and so true. How had he ever done anything to deserve such a woman?

"Once again, you've taken the very words from my mouth," he drawled, and followed her out of the aerodrome.

The air was unseasonably cool. As the hoverbike rushed along between the back doors of shops, dust and debris skittering up in the vehicle's wake, Balthier shivered, grinning to himself. Fran bent over the handlebars ahead of him, leaning right and left to steer around merchant's carts and refuse bins. The whine of the engine harmonized with the whistling of the breeze through the narrow alleyways.

"_Ka' gre mec?"_ Balthier called to Fran over the din, for the third time in as many minutes.

_We are ready?_

"_Eih," _she fairly shouted, to be heard over the wind. _"Cis'ec nr'zhitre."_

_Yes. Stop worrying._

"I'm not worried," he muttered to himself defensively, and ducked to avoid an approaching market sign.

"_Tr'noth,"_ Fran called.

_Sorry._

"I deserve it," he called back, grinning. "Careful," he added, hitting the rear brakes as a cat skittered across the alley, just in the path of the cycle. Fran nosed up slightly and missed the creature by a few centimeters.

"We're in no rush," he admonished.

"Yes we are," she replied. "I smell fire."

_Damn it,_ Balthier thought. "You should have told me earlier," He called. "I might have been worrying about the proper thing all this time and keeping out of your hair."

"You are always 'in my hair,' as you put it. I prefer it that way," She replied. She was trying to banter with him to keep him calm, but now he saw the tension in her muscles. Something was indisputably wrong.

When Palace Galtea came into view at last, Balthier bit his tongue so hard he tasted copper.

_Just what I need to see._

The Imperial combat cruiser Ifrit loomed like the hand of death over the courtyard. Sulfur bombs and Firaga grenades streamed liberally from its gunmetal-gray weapons hatch, and fire fell like rain upon a phalanx of soldiers below, who seemed to be attempting a raid on the main hall. The windows of the hall's first floor were shattered, and the courtyard swarmed with frightened civilians, soldiers, and corpses alike.

Balthier admonished himself for being surprised by this nasty tableau - He and Cid had designed the damned ship just for this purpose, after all.

"Get under cover!" Balthier shouted, above the roar of the fire.

"_Aii, tr'liith a hu'e,"_ Fran cursed mildly, and ducked the hovercycle into a bank of smoke. Balthier guarded his mouth and nose with his shirtsleeve and squinted with difficulty through the haze, toward the palace. There was a ledge just wide enough to land on that ran along the South exterior wall, right along the break between the third and fourth floors.

"Land her on the cornice, Fran," He shouted. "And go easy."

The hovercycle nosed up through the sulfur-scented smoke and emerged into the clear twilight once again. Fran turned the cycle gently to the left and ran along the castle wall, kicking the engine into a lower gear. A minute or so later the vehicle came to rest on the ledge just below a shuttered, dark window.

"We are just outside the Lady Dalmasca's chambers," Fran said to Balthier, as he jumped down from the queen seat.

"No-one will be inside, then," Balthier said mildly. He knew it sounded insensitive, and he would have rather found a servants' scullery to break in on, but the change in circumstances demanded he not be too discerning. He took a pack of shot from his supply belt and began loading his rifle. "Shall we begin?"

The shutter had been firmly locked, but Fran pried a loose board from the frame and reached around the inside of it with groping fingers to lift the latch. Balthier climbed into the darkened chamber ahead of her, rifle at the ready.

The room was dark and quiet, as he'd expected, but Fran glanced around in hesitation, her ears twitching.

"Someone has been here..."

"Never mind that - Quickly."

He went to the pair of heavy oak doors at the front of the room and made to turn the lock, but found that the door was already slightly ajar. _Peculiar,_ he thought, nudging the door open a fraction with the toe of his boot.

The hall was similarly abandoned. Fran's ears trembled, and she raised her hands to speak in finger-signs:

_I do not hear ... _

Her nose twitched. Balthier curved his hand through the air in question - _What?_

She spelled out the first word of her reply, carefully. _M-i-s-t, moving. Is pulled. Magicks maybe._

Balthier frowned, made a circle in the air with three fingers. _Mages?_

She shook her head. Balthier thought about this a moment. _Where?_

Fran sniffed again, pointed down the hall. Balthier laid his finger to his lips and gestured for her to lead the way, one silent step at a time.

Their velvet-soled leather boots made no noise on the marble floor - even their breath came silently as they slipped along the walls, following an invisible trail that Balthier could only take on faith. Fran had never led him wrong.

Five minutes later, Fran stopped short, covered her mouth and nose, snapped her fingers.

_Mist here. Can't breathe, _she signed.

Balthier frowned, tapped the wall with the back of his hand.

_Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap... thump._

Perfect. Balthier solemnly blew Fran a kiss in thanks; her eyes only barely smiled. She looked like she might be ill.

_Steady, _he signed. _You can open?_

After a long pause Fran took her hand from her face and began to trace something onto the wall with her fingertip. The glyph shimmered green for a moment, then turned orange and vanished. She ran a fingertip along the edge of the wall panel and pushed with the flat of her hand; the panel swung inward, revealing a small passageway just behind the wall, leading into a larger room beyond.

Balthier grinned, swinging his rifle to his shoulder. At the end of the passage, in the center of the room, stood a statue about two meters high. Balthier walked right up to it, smirking faintly, and bent to read the plaque at the statue's feet.

"The Heartless Goddess... how fitting. And she's dying for a kiss, I see. Well..."

He got to his feet and studied the expressionless, immaculately sculpted face, tracing a seam running between the statue's lips with his finger. In response to his touch the statue opened at the cheekbones, its face lifting away from the rest of her head to reveal a cavity within. There, on a little mythril tripod, lay a rough uncut stone about the size of Balthier's fist. It pulsed with a faint orange light. Balthier hesitated for a moment before reaching into the goddess' head to grab it.

"Like taking candy from an infant... not that I endorse that sort of thing," he drawled.

"Quite," Fran muttered.

He was faintly disappointed to find that the surface of the stone was slightly rough and cool to the touch, like any other crystal; it was not unnaturally smooth or glossy, and it did not radiate any sort of unusual heat or chill, as he'd expected it to. Had a stone this unremarkable truly destroyed all of Nabudis?

The sound of clattering armor beyond the passageway startled him out of his thoughts.

"What... but I thought... _a'liith,_ I cannot smell them. _Run_," Fran stammered.

"I've never been fond of hasty exits," Balthier quipped, darting around the nearest crate toward the passage door.

The mad dash back to Lady Dalmasca's former quarters was tense; Fran couldn't stop coughing.

"_Quiet,"_ Balthier admonished her in a whisper.

"_I cannot breathe," _she gasped.

As they rounded the last corner to the hall where they had entered, quickening their pace, Balthier heard a muffled voice call from ahead of them.

"There they are!"

He cursed vividly and ducked into the room where they'd entered, barely keeping up with Fran; she seemed to have forgotten he was tailing her. He clambered out the open window behind her, fired a warning shot back into the room, and leaped onto the back of the hovercycle just as Fran kicked up the engine.

"Move! _Move!"_

Fran opened the throttle on the cycle as far as it would go. Balthier turned in his seat, watching for trouble - The barbican was clear, but anyone in the scrum below might look up and spot them in an instant.

Halfway to the palace gate the hovercycle bucked violently, nosing up and down, swerving, threatening to shut down. Fran began to cough ever more violently.

"What's going on, Fran?"

"I... it's not... heeding me...!"

He twisted, slammed both feet on the rear brakes - they clicked into place and jammed, throwing sparks - the engine block shrieked.

"The brakes are dead... Damn it, we don't have time for this!"

Twenty meters from the gate, the hovercycle shuddered awfully, emergency brake shrieking malfunction; Balthier leaned forward and shouted at Fran's back.

"Bank left and hold on!"

The engine gave a hoarse whine and moaned to silence - and the cycle dropped like a stone into the smoky darkness below them.

_Heartless Goddess, indeed,_ Balthier thought.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_The Imperial City Archades_

_12 Darkmoon, 699_

_(Six Years Ago)_

_Ffamran pressed his back to the wall outside Tolsan Solidor's office and listened. The door was slightly ajar – this was Gabranth's first mistake._

"_Good my Lord," Gabranth said. The clatter of his armor suggested a formal salute._

"_At ease, Gabranth," came the slightly bored reply. _

_It was Vayne Carrudas Solidor, and not Lord Tolsan, who issued orders from this office now. Ffamran had nearly forgotten that the second son of Emperor Gramis had only just been found dead. The man was barely cold in the ground, his death yet a mystery, but already the younger Solidor strutted about his chambers like a peacock, spouting orders and acting the fool._

_Gabranth's voice came clearer now; he had removed his helm._

"_I bear news of His Honour Bunansa, my Lord."_

"_Speak it, then, and be brief. I am quite..."_

"_His Honour has deduced your hand in Lord Reinan Solidor's murder, my Lord. He requests the involvement of the Eighth Bureau in an investigation on the matter. I have declared them indisposed, but thought it wise that you be made aware of the situation should further inquiry be raised." _

_Gabranth fashioned himself the lead intelligence agent for Archades, and used his station as an excuse to dash about sticking his nose in other people's affairs. Apparently he'd not counted on the idea that Ffamran knew how to eavesdrop himself. Information is an Archadian's bread and butter, and Ffamran knew all the best ways to find more of it. Yes, Ffamran knew that Vayne had killed Reinan with his own hands. He hadn't seen it firsthand, of course – Vayne was too clever for that, and he had dozens of men running around in his wake, working to cover his tracks – but Ffamran knew this as plainly as he knew his own name. He would come to the details of the crime as he went along, he'd told himself, and now he had all the proof he needed. In fact there was a piece of memstone in his pocket, drinking up the whole conversation. Cidolphus would be thrilled with his foresight._

_There was a slight pause; Ffamran could fairly hear Vayne thinking, the horrid snake._

"_His Honour's arrogance is far-reaching, as I had expected," Vayne mused. "But the boy is nothing more than a tempest in a teakettle, Gabranth. I should think you of all people would know the best way to subdue a seditious element in the ranks."_

_Gabranth's confusion was plain in his tone. "My Lord?"_

"_Quell the boy as you see fit, Gabranth."_

_A moment's silence, and then,_

"_Yes, good My Lord."_

_Gooseflesh rose on the back of Ffamran's neck. He knew danger when he heard it. But he had a reconnaissance mission to run, and now if he didn't sprint for all he was worth, he would be late for their final briefing._

_A tempest in a teakettle...?_

_* * *_

When Balthier came to consciousness, he found he was soaked to the skin in grey cold water. He cursed bitterly.

"This shirt will never be clean again. Zeromus in..."

He glanced at Fran, who rolled off the hoverbike and sat up with some difficulty, hissing in pain.

"All right, my heart?"

"I will live," she muttered, the golden light of Cure blossoming between her hands. It spiraled out of her grasp, hovering above her head a moment before showering down on her like a firework. Balthier glanced at the hovercycle lying beside her; it was fizzling and hissing in the aftermath of engine failure.

"She shorted out, did she?"

Fran turned to examine the little mist engine set in the front wheel well of the hovercycle; after a moment she shook her head, tapping a readout screen on the engine casing. It was blinking feebly.

"All the conduits are intact, but it would appear the mist levels in the hover drive are critical. No... There is no mist in the engine."

Balthier took the Magicite of Legend from his pocket and frowned at it. It was pulsing with a faint orange glow, slightly warmed by the heat of his body.

"No mist in the hovercycle... I wonder... but, no. I'm being daft."

He shook his head and tucked his quarry back into his pocket. Tutting at the state of his clothes, he did his best to brush mud and grime from the lap of his leather trousers and turned to gaze across the spur of the waterway, watching for insurgents. He shook his head, exasperated.

"That little stunt with Ifrit all but ruined my heist."

Fran blinked. "You escape with your prize, yet the heist is ruined?"

"It's the principle of the thing, Fran. I'd hoped for a more graceful exit. Then again, It's probably for the better that we crashed when we did. The Ifrit's certainly playing with fire tonight; it would be a shame to get burned. We'll have to take the old fashioned way, as much as I'll miss the sky..."

Fran twitched her ears left and right, listening to the roar of the water for a long moment.

"We are not alone in the waterway. I hear soldiers."

Balthier straightened. "I'm listening."

"They are in heavy plate armor... I surmise they are Imperials. There are perhaps ten of them."

"I do adore your ears in times like these, my heart... They're sniffing out stray insurgents, no doubt. Well, we'd best move quickly." Balthier moved to retrieve his supply pack from beneath the ruined hovercycle. As he shuffled the pack onto his shoulder and turned, squinting into the misty dimness of the spur ahead of them, he groaned slightly to himself.

"I do so despise sewers."

"Consider your luck in having such a dull nose,_ fo'e," _Fran quipped, with a flick of one ear.

"Point well taken,"Balthier conceded, with a sympathetic glance.

It was not easy traveling. Garamsythe had been built in a time of booming industrial progress, but had begun to show its age. The ramps leading up from the water were beginning to show signs of wear, and in some places the bolts holding the ramps in place were bent, even broken. The rats were prolific in the Eastern spur of the waterway, chattering their teeth and hissing bitterly at the pirate intruders who trudged through "their" waters. Fran applied the spike heel of her boot to more than one particularly brazen little beast; Balthier shuddered in spite of himself as her latest target hissed, bleeding, and darted back into the damp shadows of the alcove from which it had rushed them.

"Dreadful creatures," Fran said conversationally, rinsing the heel of her shoe in the murky water.

Balthier knew only that Lowtown was South of the palace, and that all of the sewer walkways led them west. After the first hour of kicking at rats and shooting malboros, he took to checking his bronze and steel compass every five minutes. The flitting needle of the instrument made for a distraction – if pitiful - from the dampness and the steady roar of water, rushing over grates into treatment ditches. Yes, how he loathed sewers. Presently he wiped a little muck from the glass face of the compass and frowned.

"I'd thought we needed to head south from here... Pfah. If the spur keeps leading us this way we'll end up underneath the Westersand."

"Quiet," Fran said, and turned on the spot, listening hard. Balthier frowned, confused, until the clattering of heavy mail reached him over the white noise of the water.

"_Tsr'bet,"_ Fran whispered, ducking behind a protrusion of the wall. _Hide!_

Balthier did not follow her; he had caught sight of the knot of Imperial guardsmen, clanking along at an impressive speed, swords drawn. They were in hot pursuit of a Dalmascan woman in an insurgent's uniform, sprinting for the breakwater like a hare fleeing a hunting party. Unfortunately for her, she had led the unit straight to a dead end.

"We've got her now!" a voice fairly chortled.

"Run all ye like, poppet!"

"Let's see if she can swing that bloody excuse of a blade."

"Stand an' fight, wretch!"

She stopped at the edge of the platform above the breakwater, panting, and drew her blade; to Balthier's surprise the slip of a woman turned, gave a quick twist at the waist to dodge, and slashed out at the nearest Imperial, who dropped like a stone off the platform a full twenty feet; here he lay quite still in the water below the break, apparently dead.

"Who would be next?!" the woman shouted, sword at the ready. The girl was utterly mad. Balthier holstered Altair and darted forward. "You've had your fun. Jump down," he called, letting his voice carry into the murky rafters.

The woman threw him a sharp look. "Why?"

_Stubborn as well as mad..._ Balthier scoffed. "You'd rather try your luck with these fine gentlemen?"

The woman's eyes flickered as she glanced over her shoulder at the advancing guard; she shook herself and ran for the ledge. Her leap from the platform was fearless, and her grey-blue eyes flickered with concentration as she twisted in midair, guiding her freefall. Balthier caught her with ease; she was surprisingly light. Without ceremony the woman slipped quickly out of his arms and began to sprint west, as though nothing had happened. Come to think on it, the girl looked dreadfully familiar.

"You're going the wrong...!" Balthier shouted, then thought better of it and sprinted after her with an exasperated shake of his head. Fran came on his heels, her long legs propelling her to his side with ease.

"What are you doing?"

"Following a hunch. It's what I'm best at... Bloody hell, where is she _going?"_

As if to answer him, the woman darted left into an alcove Balthier had not seen, all but disappearing in the gloom. "Hm," Balthier murmured, impressed, and followed her. She stood with her back to a grate, panting and wiping her sword clean as best as she could on her muddy black woolen trousers.

"All right, miss, er...?"

"I would have been fine if you hadn't distracted me," the woman snapped, sheathing her sword in a hasty, vindictive gesture.

"As you like," Balthier conceded, "But I make it a point to prevent needless bloodshed, where I can."

"I make it a point to kill Archadians where I can. You should be nervous," the woman replied, and her eyes were a threat.

"Well, she has ears," Baltheir quipped to himself, mentally cursing his accent; his voice had a nasty habit of revealing his origins. Fran appeared at the pirate's side then, and the woman quailed slightly, suddenly more familiar than ever to Balthier's eye. After a moment her glance darted from Viera to pirate once more, and now her voice wavered slightly, though her eyes were still fire.

"Who are you?"

Fran tilted her head and did not reply; her nose twitched faintly. Balthier glanced sidelong at his partner's inscrutable expression and then turned his attention once more to the insurgent, crossing his arms in irritation. "Surely you have better manners than to interrogate someone who has just seen fit to save your life, miss. Better to introduce yourself, hm?"

The woman scowled, straightened her posture. "I am Amalia Delmanas, First Lieutenant of the Dalmascan Resistance."

Balthier considered her carefully. She was lying - it was plain in her eyes – but something in the way she spoke struck a faint chord in his mind. "A pleasure," he replied, with a slight bow. "Balthier, at your service. This is my associate, Fran."

Fran gave a mute nod; the woman called Amalia threw her a nervous glance. Balthier straightened his sleeves. "Now then, with crisis averted, we'd best be off... assuming, of course, that our friends in the Imperial Guard have lost the scent?"

Fran twitched her ears a moment. "They are yet headed west. We will be safe for a time, should we trace back the way we came."

Balthier gave a slight groan, despairing the thought, but Amalia shook her head.

"Should you wish to evade them and continue to higher ground, turn north. I know a sluice gate that leads above the water treatment facility into Lowtown. My compatriots will be there, waiting for me."

Balthier blinked at her. "You certainly know your way around."

"_A soldier must know his surroundings,"_ Amalia replied, without missing a beat; it was a quote from Madrosa's Laws Of War.

Balthier shrugged. "Yes. Well; I thank you, Amalia, for your kind assistance in... ouch."

Something was jabbing him in the thigh; he reached into the supply pouch hanging from his belt and groped about to find that the Magicite was digging into his leg. It was also, rather alarmingly, hot to the touch.

"Curious," he muttered, and shook his handkerchief out of his sleeve to retrieve the hot stone from his pocket. It was glowing radiantly now, throwing brilliant orange light onto his face. "Well, would you look at that... And I thought this heist would turn out a waste of time."

The woman stared at the now brightly glowing stone, a look akin to offense in her sharp grey eyes. "You stole that?"

"Naturally," Balthier replied, trying to sound nonchalant as he tucked it quickly back into the pouch on his belt. "We're pirates, after all. It's what we do."

"You will return it at once."

Balthier raised his eyebrows. "Will I?"

Something seemed to come over the woman; she blinked, shook herself, and glanced down at her red leather boot before rejoining. "Theft is utterly immoral. Surely you know the punishment for stealing from the..."

She stopped dead. Balthier tilted his head gravely and did not smile. She knew too much; her lie was wearing thin.

"Stealing from the palace, you were going to say. Your powers of deduction are astonishing. But how do you know where I came across this?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm correct, aren't I? That's all you should care about. Perhaps I'll turn you in to my superiors."

Balthier lifted his chin, formulating a response, when a shout echoed from above them in the waterway.

"Track back, you lot. They're down here somewhere!"

A look of alarm flickered over Amalia's face; her eyes widened, and she fell out of her perfect posture in a defensive gesture, ready to flee. Fran's ears twitched sharply to the right.

"They are far closer than I had thought... we move."

Balthier glanced over at her. "Agreed... Follow if you must, or go about your own affairs, Amalia. I don't care either way. As it stands, I've far better things to do than argue the morality of my profession with a leader of the insurgence... er... resistance. Now, if you'll excuse us..."

He felt the woman's eyes following him as he and Fran moved away.

* * *

An hour passed. Amalia's advice had not been for nothing, for turning North had led Fran and Balthier to a cleaner, properly maintained section of the sewer. The air was marginally clearer here, and to Balthier's pleasure, Fran's nasty coughing fit seemed to have passed. Now, however, she was badly distracted; she kept glancing over her shoulder at him and shivering her ears.

"You're feeling better, I trust?" he asked conversationally, as if commenting on the weather.

Fran stopped walking and turned toward him, her face cast in shadow. "I am as well as can be expected... but I must admit I am troubled."

"Worrying about me again?" Balthier suggested, airily. She had been looking at him strangely for the better part of the morning, and he wondered if perhaps her maternal tendencies toward him were getting the better of her down here in the dark and wet, where they were both compromised. He had to admit he'd been acting rather the fool.

But Fran shook her head. "It was the mist that sickened me. I could not control my thoughts... I felt as a thing possessed."

"Were you under some mild form of confuse, perhaps? You have told me that Viera are prone to such nonsense around heavy concentrations of..."

A thought struck him and he reached for the stone, tucked away in his supply pouch. It was still hot to the touch; he guarded his bare hand with his shirt sleeve and held up the stone for Fran's consideration.

"Weren't we discussing the perils of Nethicite back in Bhujerba? You said you'd seen a number of your contemporaries coming in from Nabudis, complaining of respiratory trouble and dementia in the wake of Zecht's attack. It would explain your nose going numb, as well. You said you couldn't smell the guards, and they were fairly on top of us."

Fran's eyes glimmered in the dark, and she took a half-step toward him, listening. Balthier chewed the inside of his lip at the stone in his hand, pulsing with sunset-colored light.

"If I'm right, and this really is Nethicite, we're in for quite the ride, aren't we?"

Fran shivered her ears once more, her eyes firmly upon the stone. She looked nearly frightened now. Balthier sighed and tucked the stone back into his supply pouch.

"Should the stone fall into the wrong hands, I fear..." Fran murmured.

Balthier nodded grimly. "It might, given my father's reach in these matters... the pompous, basking fool. But I won't give it over lightly. You know that."

She nodded. Balthier turned Northward again and took his compass out of his pocket, sighing to steady himself.

"Well... Let's keep moving, Fran. The sooner we get out of this wretched sewer, the sooner we can..."

Fran turned sharply West, her eyes widening. "Wait."

"What...?"

She held up one slender hand for silence, her left ear shivering. Balthier held very still and closed his eyes, listening hard for a variation in the roar of the water. After a few seconds he heard it; a strange, inhume scream cut over the white noise of the sewer, echoing from the filthy rafters like the cry of some tormented ghost.

"What is it, Fran?"

"I know not, but it is near. I smell fire again. And the woman..."

Balthier shook his head in irritation. "Amalia's gotten herself in trouble again, has she? Can't say I'm surprised..."

He broke into a jog, rounded the corner -- and then saw what had screamed. His breath caught in his throat.

A horse stood in the grey water of the spur below them, but this was no Archadian cart-pony. The creature stood at least three meters tall, by Balthier's eye, formed entirely of magickal fire. Lava poured over its flanks, and serpents of plasma and light coiled from its neck where a mane might have been. Nine tails of blue-white flame licked from its flanks, and its hooves glowed like embers, despite being submerged in the icy water in which it stood. The only part of the beast that wasn't wreathed in flame was its eyes; they were black like stone, like death, and they were fixed firmly upon the fool who had disturbed its territory.

The soldier Amalia backed away from the beast, her escutcheon held close, her sword pointed at the creature in feeble warning. There was no passage behind her, and no stair to serve as an escape route. It seemed she had forgotten her earlier quote about a soldier knowing his surroundings. Without another's intervention, she would merely back herself into an alcove and find herself burnt to death.

"Damn it, she's freezing up," Balthier snapped, irritated. "What sort of soldier backs herself into a...?"

And then the lieutenant turned her back to the beast, searching for a way out; in a moment she made eye contact with Balthier, standing above her on the platform, and his tirade against her stopped dead in his throat. He couldn't have missed the look of fear she gave him, nor the chalk-white pallor of her face. This was no soldier. He knew the woman's expression, terror mixed with resolve, like he knew his own hand. But Ashelia B'Nargin... alive?

"Heth and Haldanas," he muttered, stunned, and ran down the nearest stair, two steps at a time.

"Balthier!" Fran shouted, alarmed.

"Cover me!" he snapped over his shoulder at her, and jogged toward the princess, holstering his rifle. He had a debt to pay.

"Get back!" he shouted at her. "Get out of here!"

The woman didn't hesitate; she turned on the spot and bolted past him, toward the stair he had just come down. Halfway there she stumbled and fell with a sharp cry.

Balthier swallowed a curse and turned on his heel to face the burning creature who made to bear down on her.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he shouted.

The creature nickered, smoke rising from its huge nostrils, and turned its pitch-black eyes upon him. He smirked grimly, closed his eyes, and began to weave a spell in the air before him with his hand.

_The Rhythm of the heavens which bind a man_

_Shall never break. Their even waters_

_Ebb and flow with merciless pow'r;_

_O Scions, to my call bear witness,_

_And send these Tides of Fate to war!_

Garamsythe vanished.

The stars boiled in the void above Balthier's head, dancing between arcane symbols of a dead language. The ground beneath his feet became sheer nothingness, then vapor, then clear water, heated with the electricity of mist. The tide roiled, rushed away from Balthier's feet into the nothingness beyond the flaming creature before him. The warm magickal water soaked his boots, and spray flecked his face. Smiling, Balthier raised his arm in command, and the waters arranged themselves into a wall of force, capping with foam. Soaked to the skin now, tingling with the power of a summoned tsunami, he took aim in his mind, imagining the burning creature before him fizzling away into steam and volcanic glass.

Balthier put two fingers to his lips and whistled. In response the cap of the wave shivered, arced over the cursed warhorse like a death sentence.

"Heads up," Balthier called, smirking.

When he lowered his arm, the wave broke in a roar, consuming the beast standing beneath it. The creature shivered, screamed, and fell to its knees beneath the onslaught.

Balthier opened his eyes; Firemane was gone. Steam rose from the place where it had stood, and beyond the spur a ball of red and gold flame spun away into blackness and vanished. The creature had fled.

"I thought you might reconsider," Balthier muttered, pleased with himself. But then he remembered the princess; he scanned the immediate area where she'd fallen and found her lying just beyond the stairway. She was quite still. At once concerned and annoyed, he jogged over and knelt beside her.

"Are you injured?"

"I... ahn."

She tried to rise to her feet, but there seemed to be something wrong with her leg. Balthier felt along the outside of one of her fine red leather boots – hardly military issue footwear, to be sure – and found her ankle bent at an unnatural angle.

"Tsk, it's broken. You would do well to watch your step in the future, lieutenant... Perhaps you might invest in more sensible shoes."

She opened her eyes and glared handsomely at him. "How did you turn back that fiend? You are no pirate. I can think of scarce few who would have knowledge of magicks that strong. The scions would not bid to obey any common thief... Ouch!"

"You Dalmascans rather run your mouths, don't you?" Balthier said conversationally, drawing up a curative spell between his hands. It glowed a warm gold for a moment before spinning out of his grasp and sinking into the woman's leg. The spell seemed to do its job quite satisfactorily, for the woman got to her feet with ease and continued to rage.

"You will tell me precisely who you are, or I will turn you over to my superiors to be apprehended, tried, and hanged."

"That's the second time in as many hours as I have seen fit to save your life. I daresay a lady such as yourself would have better manners than to threaten me, Ashelia B'Nargin Dalmasca."

The princess' expression wavered, predictably, to one of alarm. "You... you know me?"

Balthier bowed. "To be sure. To say we've formally met would be a lie, but I'd be remiss not to know a face as famous as yours."

The princess began to back away from him, her grey eyes narrowed to anxious slits. "Tell me who you are, pirate, or I will have you killed."

Balthier smirked. "If you wish me dead, you'll kill me yourself, 'lieutenant'... or is the sword all for show?"

Appalled, she opened her mouth to rebuke him, but then three voices converged from behind them and overrode her.

"_Balthier! Dra'ue!"_

"Stand where you are!"

"Lieutenant!"

Ashelia B'Nargin turned left, toward the last of these voices. "Azel!" she shouted.

"To me!" the voice called, frantically, and without ceremony the princess bolted around a corner out of sight. Immediately Balthier turned toward where he thought Fran might be hiding. _"Ni' preht dr'sa!"_

_Get out of here!_

But in the next moment, three guards converged on him. One kicked him hard in the back of the leg; another wrested Altair from its holster. Disarmed, cursing in pain, Balthier went to his knees.

"Bloody good show, you fools," he muttered.

The third guard punched him hard across the face and he fell prone into the dingy grey water. Spluttering, he lay still for a moment; he squinted through the misty spray of the breakwater and watched a pair of spit shined, steel toed boots approach him.

A moment later, Gabranth of Archades leered down at him. "What a pleasure to see you again, thief," he said. His voice was hinted with disdain.

Balthier's leg was broken, and blood flowed from his nose. If it were any other man who stood before him he might have laughed to confuse the bastard, but he found his voice stuck in his throat. Disgusted with himself, Balthier spat on Gabranth's immaculately clean steel-toed boot, with feeling, and at last lifted his eyes to glare with utmost hatred into the expressionless visage of the man's visor.

"Looking for another round of corporal punishment, are you?" he whispered. "Not while I breathe, you sick bastard."

Gabranth made a small sound of fury and retaliated with a heavy, half-drunken swing of his fist.

"Balthier!" Fran shouted, in belated warning, but her voice would meet no reply; the punch connected with Balthier's temple and he dropped like a stone, insensate.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Royal Aerodrome Dalmasca - Rabanastre

(six years ago)

"_Stay on guard, gentlemen," Ffamran muttered._

_The royal aerodrome was quite dark, and predictably very still, given the late hour. The shadow of an airship frame loomed over the men of Ffamran's unit as they picked their way through the hangar toward Raminas' lead engineering vault. This had the potential to be a fine craft, Ffamran surmised; her half-finished skeleton was wide and sturdy, suggesting a war-class bird. Indeed Cid had been correct; Dalmasca was on sudden defensive, building up its air force. _

_Tonight's mission was simple; The Seventh would find the blueprints for this ship and bring them to Cid for analysis. Ffamran failed to see the logic in stealing blueprints, since they would end up gathering dust in his desk anyway, but orders were, unfortunately, orders._

_A rustling noise came from somewhere to the port side of the ship's skeleton; Ffamran pointed the torch stone in his hand toward the sound._

"_Who is it? Show yourself."_

_A trio of moogles in mechanic's uniforms peeked over the scaffold supporting the ship's port wing; it seemed they had been sleeping there. One of the soldiers flanking Ffamran snorted derisively; he gestured to silence the man, bowed slightly to the frightened mechanics._

"_Good evening. You'll forgive the intrusion; we're looking for the lead engineer on this project. Might you help us?"_

"_Who... who are you, kupo?"_

_Ffamran didn't know what to do with this question, so he changed tack, waving the torch stone up into the scaffolding. "You'll forgive my curiosity on matters not my business, but is this an official model, or some sort of personal commission? I must say I'm impressed by your execution of her skeleton. Is that gap by the starboard fin meant for a secondary cannon, next to the lead? I see where you've marked the auxiliary power already. Impressive configuration."_

"_Th... thank you," one of the moogles squeaked, as the original three were joined by eight more. Their tiny, guileless faces shone with confusion and the faintest anxiety, but Ffamran's polite shop talk seemed to have them transfixed, lulled into stillness. Ffamran made eye contact with the lieutenant to his far right, flicked his eyes toward the drafting table at the far end of the room. The man nodded, inched forward under cover of shadow._

"_I wonder if I might come round, and have a quick look at the port block?" Ffamran ventured, bowing slightly to the moogle who had thanked him. The creature tensed, shook his head._

"_N... no, kupo... I won't let you do that. You... you shouldn't be here, kupo."_

"_I understand entirely. We'll show ourselves out, then," Ffamran said, bowing again. But his eyes were on Lt. Astrac; the man had reached the drafting table, and was about to tuck the blueprint into his supply bag... They were nearly home free._

"_Tell us what you know," a voice snapped from behind the port wing, and a blade found the littlest moogle's throat._

"_Lieutenant Reslan," Ffamran said sharply, "Return to formation. We're leaving."_

"_Where are the blueprints?" Reslan growled, his menacing green eyes caught in the light of the torch. "You'll bloody well speak up, or I'll take your head."_

"_K...kupo... the alarm," the little moogle squeaked, squeezing his eyes shut._

_One of the other mechanics darted to the wall and pressed some hidden switch that Ffamran couldn't see; an alarm screamed through the hangar, startling the unit out of formation. Half of his men scattered, panicking. Ffamran had to resort to hand signals to get their attention. _Block entrance, cover on left flank, full retreat...

_The alarm stopped as quickly as it had begun. Hissss... bang. _

_The moogles began to shriek and chatter, and Ffamran turned on his heel to see Reslan drawing a spell between his hands. The base of the scaffolding was on fire, and a glossair fluid leak had caught the blaze. The fool was trying to set the airship skeleton on fire._

"_What are you doing? Fall back, you idiot!" Ffamran screamed. _

_Reslan threw the spell he was drawing at the band of moogles cowering behind the drafting table; two collapsed, immediately dead, and the rest began to howl in pain and fear. Reslan's self-satisfied grin flickered, and he bolted for the exit._

_Ffamran turned to follow, cursing, but a voice crying from somewhere above them stopped him in his tracks._

"_Stand where you are!" A girl in a simple cotton night-shift stood far above him on the catwalk, eyes saucer-round, blonde hair in a shambles. "What have you done?! They... they couldn't hurt a fly! Matta... Sherbet... they..."_

_She spotted the rapidly burning airship skeleton and froze for a moment, then turned swiftly and screamed. "Vossler! Basch! They're burning the aerodrome!"_

"_My Lady!" came a muffled voice from beyond. _

_My Lady... the princess? but she was so young. No, no time... _

_Ffamran bolted for the nearest open door, coughing, and emerged into the courtyard... only to find his men beset with the elite guard of Dalmasca. "Orders, Your Honour!" Astrac cried over the din of the fire. He didn't have his bag; the blueprints would be lost, and all hope of diplomacy with them._

_Bugger... Ffamran dashed into the scrum, saber drawn, and grit his teeth._

* * *

Balthier came to consciousness and sat up carefully. His broken leg had been set and splinted. It seemed he was important enough to someone that he warranted proper medical attention. But then again, his head ached horribly; when he touched his temple his fingers came back sticky with coagulated blood. A moment later the room tilted and he retched, moaning, onto the filthy floor beside him.

"Ah, concussion. A fine reunion gift from our dear Gabranth, eh, Fran?" he rasped. Too weak to remain sitting up, he lay on his side and listened. A moment later he heard a scratching sound across the dim room; he turned his head and watched a small trickle of sand fall from somewhere far above.

"Fran?" Balthier repeated, confused.

He rolled onto his other side and propped up on one elbow, forcing himself to hold steady long enough to locate Fran. To his visceral dismay, his only company in the room was the corpse of a Bangaa, his blue and grey body crawling with flies and decay.

A fresh wave of fear and nausea overcame him and he retched again, rolled to lie flat on his back. His mind raced. Fran was gone? Where would they have taken her? What were they doing to her? If he lost her to this hellhole...

No. He had to stop himself from this line of thought, or he would never move again. He muttered a few words of prayer to Fran's gods, hoping it would do as a petition for her protection. Not that he believed in this sort of thing, but surely it was the thought that counted, and on the off chance that it worked they would both be grateful he'd made the effort.

"_A'brac sr'hue mec..._ no, that's not right. _A'brac sa'hue vas tr'liith kr'e... _damn it... _kr'a nes... Kr'a tue h'ran da mec tr'... ba'sue tec? _Nnh."

Tired of fumbling the grammar of the thing, he shook his head and lay still. What was the use of muttering things in the dark, anyway? He'd go mad if he started up like this. He closed his eyes and waited for the splitting pain in his head to subside, listening to the strange echoes of screaming and moaning coming from the torture chambers he knew must be far above him. Eventually his mind wandered and he thought of the Strahl, his best girl, waiting for him in the hangar back in Rabanastre. The beautiful thing would rust there without him, until Nonno finally sold her – _sold _her! – to some gormless Seeq who would gut her for parts. The thought made him feel he might retch again, and so he sat up, struggling to fill his lungs with stale, putrid air.

A strange gleam in his peripheral vision caught his eye; something was reflecting light onto the wall. Curious, he half-crawled over to a large piece of stone that had fallen from its place in the wall, and was rewarded by the sight of a little glass bottle tucked behind it. He brought the bottle out of the shadow of the stone and found it was full of a pale green liquid, flecked with droplets of golden oil suspended within.

"A hi-potion...?" he whispered.

Then he saw the arrow scratched into the dirt beside his arm, pointing out of the room into the dark hall beyond. Beside it he found a crudely scratched sigil that he recognized immediately as one of Fran's improvised spells.

"My heart," he muttered, relieved, and took the stopper from the potion. When he drank, the sickly-sweet, faintly herbal tang of the stuff cleared his head, and after a moment's pause he found that the awful pain in his leg had receded. Pleased to have his faculties at least somewhat restored, Balthier gingerly got to his feet, dusted off his clothes, and turned to follow the arrow. "You'd think they would have the presence of mind to tie a man down in a place like this. Any fool with legs might deign to wander off," Balthier said aloud to himself.

The halls of Nalbina Dungeon were wide, sandy corridors of limestone and dirt that smelled quite uniformly of filth. The passages rambled on, and it was a full fifteen minutes before Balthier encountered fresh air.

The rafters of the corridors eventually lifted away from him, vaulting into an open dome framed with rickety steel scaffolding. The ground gave way to a series of grates that led off into catwalks on either side, framing a wide sandy fighting-pit. Across the arena on one of the platforms stood a Seeq, his club raised high, shouting hoarsely.

"_Gra'gu ha bangaa wrga lr'ha, Gwitch, gwe ra!"_

It was a language Balthier was only familiar with in passing, but he could make out enough of it to know the stinking creature was egging on a beating, and that whoever he was talking to was called Gwitch. There came a raspy moan of pain from the fighting-pit just ahead of and below him; the sound turned into a series of yelps, and then ratcheted into a scream. Balthier jogged forward and leaned over the railing, his breath catching in his lungs at the agony in the sound.

In the center of the arena lay a red bangaa. A filthy rag was tied around its head over its eyes, in an effort to maintain dignity; a blind Bangaa's eyes are a greater shame to it than anything a Hume might deign obscene. The bangaa tried to push itself to its feet with one arm, but Gwitch rushed forward and punched, landing a hard blow to the bangaa's shoulder; he shouted in pain and lay still. The raging seeq pacing the catwalk far above began to laugh, a congested, coughing sound that made Balthier think of a plague-ridden old man with infected lungs.

"Filthy... idiots," the bangaa half-shouted, gasping for breath.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Balthier called, and jumped over the railing to the sandy pit below. He landed hard on one knee, rolled, jumped to his feet. The seeq called Gwitch roared his displeasure to his counterpart lurking above them.

"_Galeedo, ra Ba'ghlar! Ha groum ga hwa r'gah ha bla gw'ha!"_

"That's Balthier to you, Hamshanks. And I'd say you're the one that stinks."

Gwitch roared unintelligibly and rushed him, but he was ready. He feinted left, ducked right, and went into a roll just as the seeq reached him, tumbling out of grappling-range and landing awkwardly on his feet. Blessing Fran for the hi-potion she'd left behind, he jogged a few meters, stopped, and turned.

"Really I'm surprised you recognize me, given your miniscule capacity for thought. I'd figured you the sort more interested in breaking skulls open than identifying faces," he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage.

Enraged, the seeq called Galeedo jumped off the railing, leaving his club behind. The creature's reasoning was lost on Balthier, but he wouldn't complain. He widened his stance, cocked his head, and beckoned with two fingers. Galeedo charged, and Balthier tumbled again; this time Gwitch greeted him with a clumsy kick to the ribs that scuffed over his vest and tagged him hard in the knee. Balthier jumped to his feet and limped toward his bangaa comrade, who staggered a little and turned toward him.

"Care for a little help with these two, Balthier?"

"Always appreciated," Balthier muttered, panting for breath. "You know me?"

"Everybody knows you, pirate," the bangaa rasped. "By the way... they call me Quij. Pleased to... damn."

Galeedo rushed; Quij dodged with ease and rewarded him with a punch to the back of the neck. He squealed and lay still.

"What are you doing down here, anyway – get yourself caught at last?" Quij panted.

Balthier cracked his neck, rolled up his sleeves. "Alas. And you?"

"Got caught up in a scrape with one of those infernal guards that the Consul has working for 'im. I guess it was only a matter of... Whoah!"

Gwitch swung a punch that Quij easily ducked. Balthier planted his feet and punched their seeq assailant hard in the throat; Gwitch squealed in pain and staggered backward, coughing like an ancient coal stove.

Balthier cracked his neck, rolled up his sleeves. "I'd love to stay and chat – Quij, was it? - But I've a friend waiting up for me. Wouldn't dream of keeping the lady waiting."

Quij grinned. "I knew the Viera who came through here was with you."

Balthier blinked, surprised. "You've met her? I'm pleased to hear it. We're making a break for it; Care to join us?"

Spluttering, infuriated, Gwitch retrieved Galeedo's club and swung. This time Quij didn't have the presence of mind to duck and he fell, insensate, into the dust. Balthier knew better than to stand around. cursing bitterly, he ran into the shadow of the oubliette gate, skidded to a stop, and went to his knees. Gwitch pounded Quij's head into the ground; Balthier could hear the wet crunch of the bangaa's skull fracturing, and then the dull sickening thumps of Gwitch's frustration erasing his victim's features. But then a crossbow bolt flew from nowhere, and then Gwitch lay dead on Quij's remains.

"Damn it," Balthier whispered, with feeling; he pressed his back to the wall and waited. The voice of an Archadian ardent soldier came from somewhere far above him.

"Damned fat idiots think they can go about killin' the prisoners. Useful sometimes, maybe, but stupid. Bloody waste of perfec'ly good man power."

"What'd you kill that one for?" a second voice asked; it sounded a little unsteady.

"Rules is rules, you know that," the first voice grumbled.

"Prob'ly good to eat, though," another voice heckled.

"You can bloody well shut up!" the first snapped.

"Silence."

Judge Magister Gabranth's voice sent an involuntary shock down Balthier's spine. He held his breath.

"One of the guards went a little too far, Your Honour. Protocol states..."

"I am aware of protocol, lieutenant. Your troubles with your employees are not my concern."

"Yes, Your Honour."

Balthier heard a clatter to his right; he turned his head toward the gate, and there was Fran. The gate had opened just far enough that he would be able to crawl on his belly beneath it. He groped along the wall toward her, straining to listen to the voices as he went.

"Where is the Captain Ronsenburg?"

"He has been transferred into solitary confinement, according to your previous request, and awaits interrogation."

"Very good. And the pirate Balthier?"

"Begging your pardon, Your Honour?"

"The Empire has released statement requiring that the sky pirate Balthier be turned over to my custody immediately, and alive. Where is he?"

"He is below, with the other thieves. Protocol states..."

Balthier slid under the gate and frowned at a smattering of blood on his sleeve. Above him, Gabranth's voice grew an edge.

"Do you mean to inform me, lieutenant, that the political prisoner you were given specific order to keep under surveillance is not in fact being watched?" The lieutenant began to stammer, and Gabranth cut over him. "Search the perimeter of the arena for any sign of the pirate. Should you find him, ensure he is unconscious but otherwise unharmed, and bring him directly to me. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Your Honour," the three other voices muttered, in scattered unison, and their clattering footfalls receded away from their place above the gate. Balthier turned to Fran and indicated she take the lead. They would have to move quickly to avoid detection.

"We need weapons," Balthier whispered.

Fran flicked her ears in syncopation and nodded. "We make for the oubliette. We will find passage there into an underground pass of some kind."

"An escape route of any kind is welcome indeed. Though I will miss the sky," Balthier mused, thinking of the Strahl.

"There is one problem. The door leading into solitary confinement is guarded with strong magicks – too complex for my talents."

"How annoying... if rather impressive," Balthier muttered. "So Gabranth has this Ronsenburg creature under double lock? The man must be quite a threat."

A few minutes later, Fran stopped mid-stride and gestured into a large, open room.

"Look," she whispered.

Balthier peered around the doorframe carefully, and felt the pit in his chest loosen slightly. There, in the light of a few dying torch-stones, was a small mountain of confiscated supplies; potions, gil purses, even entire suits of armor lay about in complete disorder, long forgotten. Balthier scanned the room quickly for a familiar flash of bronze and finally located Altair. It remained in its leather and brass holster, quite intact, propped up against a fat leather supply bag.

"Ah, the prison repository of wrested relics and raiments. I do wish more of my heists ended in this sort of yield; Cuts out the rather nasty haggling and selling business, you know."

"Indeed," Fran replied, with a faint smile, and she went into the room ahead of him.

The pair spent five quiet minutes exploring the confiscated loot, and soon they found themselves quite well provisioned. Altair was quite intact, and Fran's shortbow as well. As an afterthought, Balthier grabbed two large brocade gil purses and emptied one into the other; then he began pawing about looking for other half-full pouches. The more gil they had on hand for the journey, the better; after all, when would they return to Rabanastre, and his own stores of money? But then he noted that Fran was standing quite still by the door, fixing him with an inscrutable, half-bored expression.

"Think of it this way, Fran," Balthier said, in an airy tone. "Theft is ownership, and what with possession being nine tenths of the law, I rather think I'm well within my rights."

"So I've heard... Though such sentiment is ironic coming from you, good Your Honour," Fran rejoined, flicking one ear in amusement.

The celebratory, relaxed quality of their foraging quickly evaporated. Soon Fran began shivering her ears once more, her eyes narrowed in concentration and her nose twitching, scenting out their path. Balthier moved out of the room ahead of her, feeling much more confident now that his favorite firearm was restored to him. To his surprise, Fran reached out to grab his wrist, pulled him back. He turned, and Fran's long fingers danced in quick, alarmed hand-signs.

_Twenty Imperials. Armed. Swords, rifles, mages. _

He flicked one hand over the other: _Where?_

_Fifty meters straight on. Maybe less._

Balthier nodded once – Never doubt a Viera's nose – and reached for Altair. Fran widened her eyes at him and slapped her shoulder.

_Keep it on your back!_

He frowned.

_No time left. We run. Up the stairs, turn right, into shadow. There we wait._

Balthier nodded, and Fran laid her finger over her lips.

_Quietly... Go._

The pair hurried to the door at the end of the hallway, where Fran held up her hand in warning. Balthier counted down from five, opened the door halfway, and slipped through, not five meters from a small knot of soldiers. Fran came behind him and indicated the doorway that was their goal; it led into the darkness of the front chamber of solitary confinement. It was a two-hundred meter sprint from the door to the oubliette gate. _So close, yet so far,_ Balthier thought.

They crept along the wall for ten meters, ready to break into a sprint at a moment's notice; then at a corner they stopped, and Balthier peeked around it carefully. The way was clear, so they sprinted along the wall to the next corner on silent feet. At the four-way junction, Balthier stopped in his tracks and darted backward, pressing his back to the wall. Gabranth marched across the next junction ahead, accompanied by a detail of three large bodyguards and a dour faced mage. The five men turned out of sight, in the opposite direction Balthier might have guessed that they should; light and dark ends of the corridor were terribly misleading in these lower reaches of the fortress.

Balthier counted backward from five once more and ventured another careful glance around the wall. At the end of the hall stood the oubliette doors, constructed of heavy steel; they appeared to be locked down with some sort of elaborate stone and enamel latticework. The mage of the party turned and bowed deferentially to Gabranth; the Judge's black steel helm nodded slightly in permission. Obediently the mage turned toward the gate, held up both gauntleted hands in prayer, and began to chant in a low, crooning voice.

"_Tjensk ro bur, lar Faram kwor bjur nequh..."_

The latticework over the doors began to glow and shimmer. The sound of flowing water reached him, and then the trembling of magick, keening obediently in response to the mage's command. Now the lattice was melting – but no, it was unmaking itself. It coiled away from the door like so many serpents, or the tails of some mythical sea-monster. Balthier had never seen a lock so complicated, and he could barely believe his eyes when the chains of white stone and black enamel vanished entirely.

The doors swung open with a moan and the mage stepped out of Gabranth's path, bowing once more. The judge nodded again and proceeded into the black beyond the oubliette door, an odd gravity in his step. Balthier shook himself, stepped out from the shadow of the wall. He looked left and right down the adjacent halls, and when he was satisfied, he offered Fran a gesture of all-clear.

"_Ka' gre mec?"_ he asked her as she came up beside him.

Fran didn't answer; instead she blinked at him languidly, an almost catlike expression on her face. "You are worried?"

"Don't be daft," he replied quickly, and they descended the stair behind Gabranth into the black, reeking stillness of solitary confinement.

* * *

Balthier and Fran found the main chamber of the oubliette eerily quiet. Judge Magister Gabranth approached the caged prisoner in the center of the room on slow strides, his attention keen on the sleeping man hanging in chains before him. At length he stopped before the oubliette cage and lifted one gloved hand into his line of vision for an idle moment's inspection. In the dim squalor of the oubliette, the leather glove seemed unnaturally clean and glossy, its immaculacy a silent insult to the filthy, skeletal man that hung in chains before him.

"Good evening to you, Basch."

The prisoner opened his eyes immediately; he had not been sleeping at all.

"And swift, painful hell to you, Noah. I was hoping you would come."

Balthier felt a fist knot in his gut as he pressed himself closer to the wall. Why would a prisoner in solitary confinement know Noah Gabranth of Archades by name? A Judge never reveals his civilian identity to anyone not of station, least of all foreigners and prisoners. The idea that the head of Archadia's Eighth could be identified accurately and swiftly – and this despite his helm – alarmed Balthier considerably.

"Your lie is heartening, if transparent," Gabranth rejoined. "But enough with pleasantries."

As the judge removed his helm, Balthier felt his heart leap into his throat and stick there. Seeing Judge and prisoner standing face to face in profile was an alarming revelation, for Gabranth's flint-blue eyes stared coolly into the prisoner's own, of same shape and color. The prisoner's matted blonde hair hung lank around his shoulders, but did little to hide the broad structure of his jaw and high brow; Gabranth bore the same chiseled, classically Landisian look. He tilted his head gravely to the left, and the man called Basch mirrored the gesture, widening his eyes slightly in challenge. There was bitterness here, and a flash of madness. Balthier shuddered, recognizing the repressed urge for vengeance in the man's stare.

The most powerful man in Archadia's military and the great traitor of Dalmasca were twins. Judging from the odd silence between the two, this meeting between them would not be a happy one.

Gabranth murmured something in Landisian that Balthier could not translate.

"_Bjor saag_?"

The prisoner scowled and replied in kind.

"_Bjor tensk wohr seth_."

Balthier heard Fran suck air through her teeth and turned toward her; she ducked further into the shadows. Judging from the expression on her face, this exchange was far from civil. As if to confirm Balthier's suspicion, Gabranth smiled mirthlessly and began to pace the floor. Balthier narrowed his eyes. This was the languid, measured movement of a man who had an ace up his sleeve.

"Nalbina has been far from kind to you, Captain," Gabranth said at length. "Do you think perhaps you are willing to strike a bargain?"

The prisoner tilted his head, a painfully slow gesture that spoke of hatred. "Enough. If you are here, you want something of me. Speak it plain."

"You are direct as ever... very well."

Gabranth examined the prisoner's filthy, emaciated face for a moment with a shrewd look; he seemed to enjoy the grim sight of his twin trembling in exhaustion and pain.

"Tell me, Basch... Who is Amalia?"

At this question, the change in the prisoner was immediate and dramatic. His listless eyes flashed with a strange, startled look for a moment, and then he seemed to catch himself; he turned his head out of the light.

Gabranth straightened. "Your silence speaks well enough. You are ever faithful to the pitiful sand-choked land you claim as home, I see. But you should know that if you do no loosen your tongue, punishment shall be exacted against you, as the law demands."

Balthier winced. Noncompliance during one of Gabranth's interrogations meant the whip, and in Gabranth's hands, the whip was worse than death.

Gabranth fixed his twin with a dark, determined stare; Basch merely closed his eyes. The man looked as though he might pass out, or drift off to sleep. Irritated now, Gabranth rapped on the bars of the cage with the back of his studded glove. Basch opened his eyes once more and gave a slight grunt, as though he had been punched in the stomach. He seemed to be having trouble breathing.

"_Da tjor nequh saag, Basch,"_ Gabranth said, in a clipped, irritated voice. His eyes flashed with an almost childlike impatience.

"_Ar bjas, Noah,"_ Basch replied in a strangled voice, and began to cough violently. In response Gabranth stepped quite close to the cage and peered through the bars like a fascinated child. When the prisoner's respiratory distress spluttered to a halt, the corner of his mouth twitched into a strange, sadistic smirk.

"_Taa. _But tell me, Basch; Do you ever wonder what the people of Dalmasca say of you and your crimes?"

"I have committed no crime," Basch rasped.

"Have you not? The Marquis Ondore has declared you a traitor among men, and hopes to make an example of you to the others who might rise in your stead... Perhaps you should be grateful of your solitude, given the circumstances."

The prisoner squinted, tilted his head back into the dim light of the torchstone on the wall. "I do not understand."

"You are quite dead, Brother," Gabranth said, almost conversationally. "You were executed shortly after your arrest, and at Her Majesty Ashelia B'Nargin's order, no less. You are a murderer. Had you forgotten?"

Fran gave a tiny jerking movement, as though something had bitten her. When Balthier turned to glance at her, her eyes had rounded with a strange look of revelation. Her eyes flicked from one man to the other, and she very carefully shrank back once again, until now all Balthier could make out of her was the silvery white cascade of her hair over her shoulders.

Basch's eyes darkened with a tidal wave of inscrutable emotion; once again he quickly turned his face out of the light. The corner of Noah's mouth twitched in fleeting satisfaction at this reaction.

"I repeat, Captain; Who is the insurgent known as Amalia?"

Basch shrank even further into the shadow cast over the cage, chains clattering hollowly in the open sandy expanse of the chamber. Balthier leaned forward ever so slightly and narrowed his eyes, trying to see whatever it was that Fran had caught scent of; something was deeply amiss in Gabranth's smugness. Basch turned his face back into the light and cleared his throat.

"Your master, Vayne Solidor, will tell you who she is – You would do well to ask this of him, and leave me to silence."

Gabranth straightened, surprised. "You readily admit that My Lord Vayne knows this woman's identity? Why will you not speak it plain, if it is no longer classified information?"

Basch turned his face out of the light a third time; this time he went completely limp, shutting out Gabranth, the soldiers, the steady drip of water somewhere deep below them. Half-cast in shadow, he might have been a corpse, but at length he spoke again.

"You cannot escape your deeds, Brother. You have blood on your hands; what you have done cannot be erased, no matter the depth of your fealty to the Basilisk."

Gabranth turned and glared at Basch's limp form with a sneer of almost adolescent disdain. "And what of your own iniquities, Brother? Landis is as nothing now. Where were you when Her glory faded into dust, traitor?"

Basch opened his eyes. "If fleeing for one's life is a sin, defecting out of fear and consenting to aid the enemy is a graver one still. If ever there were a traitor, Noah, it was you."

"Your usefulness to the empire wanes, Brother," Gabranth said gravely. "Speak, or the full extent of the law will be exacted; Who is the woman Amalia?"

A full minute passed. Basch did not so much as twitch a muscle; in fact it seemed he was barely breathing. All was silent now, but for the intermittent dripping of water far below. Gabranth stood very still, his head tilted like a spaniel's, listening to the strange, semi-musical sound. Basch hung limp in his restraints, eyes closed, body leaned back into shadow.

"An impasse? Very well," Gabranth said at last, and his voice held the faintest touch of a smile. "Then it is over." He turned to the soldier who stood silently at his right. "Inform the guard that Captain Ronsenburg is to be executed at three hundred hours, quickly and without formal announcement. There will be no need for any exercise of prisoner's rights. This is a court martial, and all rights of the accused have therefore been rescinded."

Balthier was hardly surprised when the soldier did a slight double-take in confusion. Had the death penalty ever been sentenced to a man so swiftly and casually?

"Yes, Your Honour."

Gabranth replaced his helm at last and turned to leave; his detail followed in his wake, looking as though they had found themselves underwater and had no idea how to proceed. Balthier straightened his posture and held very still for a moment, listening, his eyes half-lidded and looking aslant toward the sound of receding footsteps.

"Judge Gabranth has blood on his conscience," Fran murmured. She sounded like she might be ill.

"Naturally," Balthier agreed, quietly. "But you're referring to Raminas B'Nargin, aren't you?"

She nodded. "Captain Ronsenburg is innocent."

"A Captain of Raminas' Knights framed for murder and high treason by our dear Gabranth...?"

Balthier paused in thought. The hound of the empire, Noah Gabranth, brought to murder in his brother's stead... The thought sobered him, rang all too true. He squinted, smirked to himself. One hand washes the other, and should he free Basch, the man would be in his debt... which made the perfect ace in the hole against Gabranth's division.

"Are you feeling altruistic, Fran?" he asked.

Now that the door had closed, The prisoner yanked ineffectually at his restraints, flexing his arms in fervent, half-mad rage. He began to growl savagely, as if he might scream, his chest heaving with the effort of the struggle.

"I would save your strength if I were you, Captain," Balthier said, stepping out into the light and cracking his neck. "You've a long night ahead of you if you want to get out of this hell-hole alive. You'd rather like to find the Lady Ashe before your brother does, am I correct?"

The prisoner stopped dead. "Who's there? What do you..."

Balthier tilted his head. "What do I want? Well. I thought I'd made it plain, but I would bloody well like to get out of here, if it's all the same." He didn't mean for his tone to take on an edge, but he wasn't in the mood for lengthy conversation.

Fran stepped out of the shadows and sniffed the air. "The mist flows through here," she said. "The pit below us leads on; there are passages through the underground. At least one must lead to the surface; it is only logical."

"Then it's settled. I do believe I know that lock," Balthier said, frowning at the padlock on a lever near the cage. "If I'm right, we'll be on our way before you know it."

"That is best," Fran said, glancing at the oubliette door. "A guard detail will come looking for us here, no doubt."

"Infamy does have a way of cramping my style," Balthier sighed, taking a plain bronze hairpin from the hem of his vest and squinting at it.

"Who are you?" Basch rasped, leaning forward in a clatter of chains. "What do you know of Lady Ashe?"

"The pirate Balthier, at your service," Balthier rejoined, distracted by the lock pick taking shape between his fingers. "No-one of consequence, really – Just taking a detour from a rather important errand. Apparently piracy is badly frowned upon in these parts; rather inconveniently so for me. As for your dear Ashelia B'Nargin, we've met; I daresay the woman has a knack for getting into trouble. A veritable damsel in distress... Which brings us to you, good Captain. I do believe this particular damsel would be under your jurisdiction?"

Basch's eyes flashed with confusion and alarm, but he didn't reply. Balthier glanced from the bent hairpin to Basch and quirked an eyebrow; had he been too casual about the whole thing? Slightly irritated with his own lack of manners, he met Basch's heated stare with an apologetic nod.

"You'll forgive me for being rather flip about all of this, but I don't usually make a habit of getting involved in political affairs. Rather distasteful business... For you, however, I'll have to make an exception. After all, you and the princess were both reported dead not six months ago, and when the dead refuse to remain so, it means an ill wind blows." He turned his eyes back to the lock-pick, adjusted it. "I may be young, but I am not a fool, nor am I heartless. I will aid you, for a price."

Basch frowned. "A price..."

"Your sword-arm will do, Captain. I hold no delusion of divulging you of any riches you may possess. As I said before, I'm no fool."

Balthier knelt beside the control lever beside the cage and felt along the underside of the lock for a deviation in the weight of the tumblers that he might exploit, but the lock was quite light and yielded few hints as to its inner workings. He bit his tongue in thought, tilted his head; after a moment he returned his attention to the hairpin in his hand and bent the end of it carefully.

"Hm; one, and two... and there we are," he said, slipping the pin into the padlock. The mechanism sprang open with barely any application of leverage.

Fran lifted her chin slightly, amused. "Quick work indeed," she commented.

"Tin and travesty, that padlock is," Balthier said happily. "I ought write a strongly-worded letter to the locksmiths at Draklor about this. Now, if you'd be so kind, Fran, this lever's a bit on the rusty side..."

"Stand clear," Fran said, and roundhouse-kicked the lever as hard as she could. The cage shuddered, and as Balthier clambered quickly onto the chain following it down, he smirked to himself; these horrid situations did seem to turn in his favor all too easily. Where before he was no better than a rat in a trap, now his ace in the hole traveled through the blackness below them toward freedom, and in the nick of time.

_Robin-hooding has its merits now and then, _Balthier thought to himself, and chuckled aloud as the cage plummeted into darkness.


	5. Chapter 4

_(A/N: My apologies for being so very long in posting this chapter. The real world has gotten terribly demanding in the past few months.)_

**Chapter 4**

The cavern below Nalbina was oddly clean, sandy and wide, paved with golden sandstone and dark scarred wood. The room was too dry to be hospitable to rats or snakes but it remained unsettling in its own right, lit as it was by guttering golden electric lights high in the ceiling. The smell of oil and sand and stale air were an improvement to the stench in the oubliette above, truly, but Balthier wished ardently for Fran's senses that he might catch a breath of clean, open air from far above.

In better light, Basch fon Ronsenburg was a worse sight yet than Balthier had previously noted. The man lay wheezing on the stair, his neck and shoulders scattered with blue and purple and green bruises, his hair filthy and matted with blood. His breath rattled in his lungs, and his ribs cast shadows over one another; malnutrition and a measure of neglect had done their damage to him, and it was a sorry thing to see. The pirate thought of Gabranth's fondness for another's suffering and chewed his lip grimly, contemplating the gravity of what he'd witnessed a moment before.

"You will... explain yourselves," Basch wheezed, between coughs. The man was hardly in good spirits and looked half inclined to pounce on his new companions if he were so disposed. _Better to live in known treachery than unknown charity, _Balthier mused. _Poor bastard._

"We mean you no ill, Captain," Fran said gently, reaching into her pack and producing a hi-potion. "Drink this, slowly. When you are well sated by it we will proceed."

Basch looked all around them, disoriented by the guttering light. "Where would you take me?"

"North," she replied simply, twitching her ears, "And east. We seek the desert."

Her eyes were sure and slightly hardened as she sniffed the air, seeking something in scent or sound that Balthier couldn't. Disquieted by her sudden alertness, he opted to speak before he gave away his anxiety.

"From the desert we make for the capital, and from there we return to the sky, where we damn well belong, I'll warrant. A pirate's place is above the earth, not in it. We'll take you as far as Rabanastre proper, but you'll be on your own from there. I trust there are no objections?"

"I... I understand," Basch conceded. His hands shook as he took a deep draft from the potion bottle, but he did not take his eyes from Balthier's face for an instant. His gaze was dull and tired, weighted with the airs of a caged animal that's grown bored of its despair. Balthier found he had to repress a shudder of revulsion, for the coerls that Cid so loved to toy with in Draklor's labs came to mind all too easily – filthy, blind and toothless, barely mustering the will to breathe.

Presently he felt the weight of Fran's glance and turned to raise his eyebrows at her. It had taken him five years to decipher Fran's peculiar little glances; he was to get a lecture judging from the tilt of her head. He dusted off his vest.

"Fran; might I have a word?"

They walked a hundred meters down the corridor to a little alcove. The passage was cold, but mercifully clean; dim orange light glowed from high above them, and bats slept peacefully in the rafters. Balthier leaned against a filthy, splintered crossbeam and waited, one eye on the family of mimics scuttling down the adjacent hallway.

"_Are you certain this is wise?"_ Fran muttered in Vieran.

Balthier frowned at her. "What - we should leave the man to die?" Perhaps his tone was a little clipped; Fran shook her head, and one long velvet ear twitched in irritation.

"Balthier..."

Balthier waved a hand dismissively. "Yes, I know. The gods bless my selfless altruism but laugh at my foolishness. Thank you."

Fran went into her favourite disdainful slouch. "Gabranth will be looking for us all, now. We will be easier to track..."

Balthier cocked an eyebrow. "Really."

"...And less likely to go about our business unnoticed. Ondore will be on to us soon, _eih?_ I fear we cannot stay in Bhujerba much longer – what good will your plans be if we have nowhere to hide when suspicions are roused?"

"Fran, I'm surprised at you; I thought you'd be pleased."

"And pleased I am, _fo'e_. You have done right by an innocent, but Justice should not always be blind, _eih?_" Fran chided, flicking her ears.

Balthier smirked. On one level he was strangely pleased with himself, but Fran was right; he could have thought a moment before saddling them both with an ill tempered, half-dead Dalmascan.

"Justice," he muttered, glancing toward the gate at the bottom of the stair. "That's a fairy tale, if ever I heard one."

Fran raised her eyebrows at him appraisingly, murmured to him in Vieran. "_Indiscretion aside, You are more a Judge now than you ever were, I think."_

Balthier quirked an eyebrow in surprise._ "Justice is not mine – I am a thief."_

But she held his gaze a moment, and a hint of a smile touched the corner of her mouth, almost imperceptible. He let her stare. Thief or Magister or both, she would come to her own decisions about him.

"We shouldn't tarry," he said, turning back toward the alcove where the captain lay.

_* * *_

Four hours down the corridor, Fran began to breathe deeper, and the look of sullen exhaustion left her. This puzzled Balthier. They had slain so many mimics that the scraps of metal left behind could build an airship, and the dim horrid corridors echoed with Basch's coughing and shuffling feet. Balthier himself grew sleepier by the hour in the flickering light of the underground, and longed for cool air and blue sky.

"You're looking utterly buoyant, my heart," he commented to Fran, allowing a hint of jealousy into the compliment. "Care to share your good humour with the rest of us?"

Wtihout answering at first she jogged forward, her hair shimmering in the dim light, then called over her shoulder.

"I knew I smelled leather. There are bodies here; they are soldiers. Perhaps there are supplies among them that are befitting to you, Captain. Take your time in provisioning yourself. We rest awhile."

"Ironic good fortune," Balthier commented. "I never thought I'd be glad for a chance to loot the dead."

Basch turned to him. "Master Balthier, if I may..."

Balthier felt an involuntary shudder run down his neck, and shook his head. "No 'master' for me, Captain. My name is title and station enough."

"Aye... Balthier. I am remiss not to thank you sooner, but you understand my reluctance. I am in your debt."

"Hardly," Balthier protested politely, with a small bow.

"My apologies," Basch continued, "But I fail to understand. I am convicted of high treason and murder, and though I am innocent, it is surely not my word that sways you. Why have you freed me?"

Balthier examined his fingernails. The real answer? Too complicated by half. _I've realized that Gabranth could stoop to murder in order to please a Solidor, and I can't let him get away with this. Your continued existence will infuriate Cid, and thus muddle his plans... Because you must protect Ashe, or the empire will prevail, and I... Damn it, I'm entirely through with watching innocent men die. _

"I've learned a number of things in my life, and one is this; a man who always trusts what he reads is a fool. You were declared dead in Bhujerban news circulars not six months hence; now here you stand. Clearly claims of your violent betrayal are in question."

Basch nodded gravely; Balthier chewed his cheek in thought.

"Care to enlighten us?"

A flash of suspicion in the captain's voice. "I beg your pardon?"

"There are accounts in every port of your terrible misdeeds toward Dalmasca. To hear your account would round out my collection of rumors rather nicely. Information is, after all, an Archadian's bread and butter."

Fran turned and blinked quietly at him, no doubt trying to light him afire for his glib miscalculation. Balthier bobbed his head.

"Forgive me if I've overreached in my curiosity, Captain."

Fran flicked one ear and turned away from him again, at least half satisfied. Basch frowned solemnly at a pair of rusty gauntlets and began to strap them on.

"Nay; to tell the story again, and to a willing ear, will be good for my spirits. Do not worry that you've offended me in asking. I would that more might deign to hear the truth."

Balthier nodded politely, leaned against a dirty crossbeam and waited.

"The assignment from Raminas was a simple routine order; maintain the perimeter of the fortress and allow no uprising from any detail not associated with the political attaché traveling with Lord Vayne. My platoon leader, one Captain Azelas, agreed with my assessment that this was a display of trust too swift for the situation – ever since His Majesty Nabradia fell at Nalbina the month previously, we had been on the lookout for any treachery wrought by Archadian hands."

"And rightly," Balthier muttered. Basch blinked once, puzzled, and continued -

"The courtyard was quiet, but for a few ground troops doubtlessly placed to slow our progress to the treaty-signing. We had no trouble subduing them. The trouble began when we reached the main hall. A phalanx of mages were waiting for us, and we were ill-equipped for magickal attack. Confuse and Sleep were troublesome, and we wasted a good deal of time remedying them in one another. Halfway to the main stair, a small scout party of five men beset us. We were running very short on time, what with the setback we had been afforded earlier, and I thought for a moment that we might be too late to reach Raminas, but then Captain Azelas exhorted me to continue ahead without him; he would subdue the scout line and rejoin me in the hall below, outside the main chambers.

"About three minutes later I and my lieutenants, Galsat and Dracurion, were ambushed. The other two were drawn off, and I was... overwhelmed, that is... I was met with opposition too... I could not..."

The man was shutting down, struggling to keep his calm in the memory. He broke out into a sweat. Balthier nodded sadly. _Poor bastard._

"That's the lot of it, then?" he asked, gently.

"Nay," Basch said. His eyes were distant, too bright. "My brother... one Noah Gabranth... you saw him in the oubliette. He came forth and confronted me. He told me my glory was finished, and thanked me for my... service to the Empire. He took my blade from my side... kissed my cheek. And... and then I was knocked out."

He was shaking, his lips trembling with badly restrained emotion. Fran twitched both ears nervously, but did not speak.

"Hm. Yes, that sounds about right," Balthier mused at length, examining his tattered, grimy fingernails with faint disdain. "Gabranth would be the sort to do such a thing... Hateful bastard. No offense meant to yourself, of course," he added hastily.

Basch frowned. "You speak as though you know my brother personally."

Balthier casually shifted his gaze to the captain's face. "This brother of yours is quite famed in Archadian gossip, and as you can no doubt tell by the lay of my tongue, I'm no Dalmascan, Captain."

Basch grunted in concession and did not speak again, glowering darkly at his ill-fitting leather greaves. Balthier gave his fingernails a last cursory glance, shrugged to himself, and turned to squint into the blackness further down the corridor.

"The surface is nearer now than before," Fran said, flicking her hair out of her eyes. "There is a door just above us, at the end of a switchback. If I am correct, we will emerge on the Estersand outside Rabanastre in perhaps a half-hour. From there we may return to the city."

Balthier exhaled, lightheaded with relief at the thought of the city's bustle and light. The Strahl had been waiting for him in Rabanastre for a week now, and surely Nonno was beginning to panic at his absence. "Well. If you're properly provisioned now, Captain, we'd best be off. If Fran is right, we've got a pressing obligation with a bit of fresh air. I must say, I'm rather looking forward to the wretched blistering desert after all this dust and dark nonsense."

"Aye," the Captain said gravely, and Balthier saw – perhaps too late – that Basch had seen plenty of the dark and decay himself. More than anyone, this man surely longed for golden sand, earthen cliffs, and the endless unbroken blue of the sky over Dalmasca.

"It's a damned shame," Balthier whispered to himself.

"_Eih,"_ Fran agreed gravely, and went ahead of pirate and captain into the darkness, ears beautifully erect, eyes on the flittering wings of the next bat to befall her arrow.

* * *

The surface was brighter than Balthier remembered it. The sky was white when first he emerged from the dim monotony of Barheim, but it gradually faded into the brilliant blue that he remembered so fondly.

"_Ah, the wild blue of heaven / ever radiant in her splendour calling,"_ Balthier recited, filling his lungs with warm desert air.

"Dalmasca..." Basch whispered, and knelt, sifting a handful of golden sand between his fingers. He wore an expression of tenderness and wonder, as though he'd never seen sand before in his life, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever known.

"Welcome home, Captain," Fran said.

"Thank you," Basch replied, with feeling.

Balthier took his compass from his pocket and studied it for a moment. "What luck; we're nearly to Rabanastre. I know that cliff ahead of us from the air. It'll be a three-hour walk into town, if I'm right; We'll be home for supper."

"Fine. We go," Basch said at once, and strode ahead. The fresh air had bolstered him tremendously.

"You heard the man," Balthier commented to Fran, bemused at the captain's transformation.

"_The princess awaits his intercession there, perhaps,"_ Fran commented in Vieran.

"_Not likely... though I haven't the heart to tell him that,"_ he replied.

* * *

It was barely sunset when the three reached the East gate. Basch bowed stiffly to Balthier in a proper military display of gratitude. Balthier bowed in turn - hoping he didn't look too terribly official - and arched an eyebrow.

"Remember, Captain, you're a dead man, and I'm hardly any better off. If you want to keep your head on your shoulders and the sky where you can see it, you won't use names where any strangers can hear them."

Basch nodded. Balthier leaned close to him as nonchalantly as he could and began to murmur under his breath, picking at his shirt cuffs as he spoke. "For the record, I'm not a pirate; I'm a perfectly boring bastard with too much money by the name of Mid Demensas. I've only met this lovely viera a few times in my travels, and we're anything but associated with one another. We certainly don't know a damned thing about this unfortunate breakout business, either."

Basch nodded, but his eyes were scanning the crowd; Balthier abandoned his false concentration and fixed the captain with an arch expression. "You're only safe as long as you keep your mouth closed and your eyes open. Agreed?"

"Aye," Basch said.

"We linger in Rabanastre awhile, should you need us," Fran commented nonchalantly; as they walked away, Balthier saw Basch duck into the crowd with a look of grim determination in his eyes. Clearly the man had business to tend to.

"As you were, soldier," he muttered. "And God help you."


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_Two Days Later: _

_The Imperial City Archades _

_(Draklor Laboratory)_

_From the desk of Dr. Cidolphus Demen Bunansa_

_Requesting the audience of His Excellency, Lord Vayne Carrudas Solidor._

_Good my Lord, I pray this finds You well and flourishing. Regrettably my work holds me to my desk, and I am unable to join You as attaché to Senator Gregoroth's meeting. I am sending one of my advisors in my stead, and I dearly hope You will not take offense to my need to remain stalwart in my work._

_I am on the eve of a great breakthrough in the design of your new aircutter. Venat informs me that she will be the greatest ship Ivalice has ever known, surpassing the middling accomplishments of Moogle mechanical design by two hundred years. The details are as of yet unclear, but I have secured the funds required for her docking station as she is built, and the men of Seventh division have risen above and beyond the call of duty to attain for me the necessary manpower to build her._

_Enclosed please find my latest mock-up of the final blueprint; note the wings. I shall call her Bahamut._

_I remain ever at your service._

_C D B_

* * *

"_He is frightened."_

Doctor Cidolphus Demen Bunansa paused in the midst of laying Drklor's seal to the letter he'd just written. Had he gone mad at last? The Occurion's proclamation echoed, a voice within a voice, and Her crown scraped the corners of Her hume companion's mind, stirring questions and fears in him. He could no longer understand Her outright; but then, when had he last slept?

The doctor tilted his head slightly and waited for a flash of second sight's vision. It did not come.

"What do you see, Venat?" he prompted.

"_The pirate finds the pow'r of Raithwall sleeping in his hand. He fears its reach."_

"Ffamran...? Damn it, what's the fool boy doing now?"

"_The child pursues the stone as you, and finds his lawless freedom serves an aid. His intellect evades the guard you've placed. Doctor - though I dearly wish it false - he means to foil you."_

"Damn him," Cid snapped. "I'll kill the bastard myself. Where is he?"

"_Patience,"_ the voice within a voice admonished. Golden eyes of flame and darkness burned with disapproval in the doctor's mind, and he rubbed his eyes, cowed.

"_The stone has taken Ffamran to its thrall. His fear of you is plain, and fear shall lead him safely to your door. He shall persist through snares we deign to lay. 'Tis her aid emboldens him, though I know not the price we pay to reach him."_

Cidolphus was used to such vague insights, but he had grown too tired to decipher the Occurion's meaning. He shook his head.

"You speak of the lady Dalmasca?"

Venat's eyes burned, shimmered. Cidolphus felt Her stare intensifying behind his eyes; it made his head ache terribly, but this was an ache he loved so very much.

"_No. Dalmasca's queen is ignorant of all that we have done. Yet Ffamran's consort holds close sway in him. To restore him to his rightful place, she must be neutralized."_

Cidolphus had not expected mention of the boy's lover. He tilted his head, thinking. "The Viera, you mean? She would dare entangle herself in a weave of Raithwall's making? Intriguing," he murmured. "Yes... I may yet draw Ffamran home, should his dearly beloved whore be implicated."

"_We had thought you may approve. But, you yet must sleep. The road is long; We fear your feeble Hume body doth tire."_

Talk of sleep once more. How Cid despised the very thought of sleep.

"I would that we fragile mortals had no need for sleep, my dear Venat. You Occuria subsist without it, and it leaves such time wasted."

"_Be at ease, dear Doctor. We shall continue Our work as you rest, and when the time is come, all that slips through your fingers will be restored to you. Now, We are called away to another servant. Go you about your obligations to His Excellency, and come the proper hour We shall return."_

"Hn," Cidolphus conceded, and the burn of Venat's gaze shimmered and faded. She had moved on from him, to matters beyond his understanding.

Frowning quietly, he rose from his desk and put the damper on the fireplace. Not all was going as planned, but it seemed Venat's design encompassed more than he could see. As an afterthought, He turned tired golden-green eyes to the notebook lying on his desk, and read aloud to himself.

"_Now see the power of Man arise, ye broken, traitorous masses. You who raise your voices in prayer to distant dying light shall know error..."_

_Ah, what poets the Occuria are,_ Cidolphus mused to himself. He thought faintly of Ffamran, and the boy's fondness for meter and cadence of old-fashioned verse such as this. The vague memory of his son's smirking face made the doctor scowl. A time would come when the traitorous little snake called Balthier would pay for his crimes - But now, Cidolphus reminded himself, he could only watch and wait.

As he locked his office door behind him, the doctor smiled.

* * *

_Meanwhile –_

_Rabanastre (The Sandsea)_

Fran had been nibbling peacefully at her waterweed salad for five minutes before she noticed that Balthier wasn't eating at all. He was bent in stoop-shouldered concentration, brow furrowed, over a piece of parchment that looked faintly familiar.

"You've not touched your steak, _fo'e_. You are not hungry?"

"No time to be hungry. This jagd-proof skystone is more important to us now than I had thought it would be, and if I don't finish this map today we're never going to make it to Bhujerba in time."

They wouldn't think to look for him in Bhujerba; nobody ever went looking for him in the sky-city. He made a point of complaining about how awful Bhujerba was whenever the opportunity arose, calling it a tourist-trap and a floating nuisance. To his delight, word had spread that the sky pirate loathed the place, which made it the perfect vacation spot when the skies grew hostile – which they soon would be.

"You still wish to make a bid for the skystone in Lhusu? I see. But why must we make such haste?" Fran asked.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that he thought Gabranth was tracking them. He didn't have anything to substantiate this, but the paranoid suspicion crept up on him still. For all he knew the soldiers who had lost track of them in Nalbina dungeon were on the hunt, and his bounty had gone up again purely for Gabranth's amusement.

"Never mind," he muttered, and began chewing on the end of his pencil once more.

Fran rotated her ears and blinked twice, surprised. "Look who comes," she said, nodding toward the door. Balthier turned in his chair and saw Basch striding toward them, looking very out of place. Balthier had rather forgotten how emaciated the man was. Given the time they had spent together, the man's ill appearance had faded into the background. Now in the company of healthy, tanned Dalmascans, the captain looked a bit like a ghost. On the other hand it appeared he'd had a chance to bathe and get a proper haircut; his blonde hair was quite clean now, and cut to a loose, slightly shaggy length that well suited his face. Balthier was faintly relieved to see that he'd forgone the severe military style that Gabranth favoured. Basch's clothes were new, as well. The simple steel plate armour he wore was a bit loose on him, but the high-necked green tunic he wore beneath it suited him, and his brown leather boots, laces and buckles all the way to the knee, seemed to restore a purposeful bent to his step. When the captain gained his musculature back with a bit of time and nourishment, he would cut quite a figure.

"I hope he hasn't been getting himself into trouble," Balthier muttered. "The last thing the man needs is a unit of the guard tailing him, what with his brother about."

"Hush," Fran murmured.

Presently Basch stopped at their table.

"Ah, Captain. It's been an age. You're looking well," Balthier drawled, fixing him with a meaningful glance. Four hours hardly constituted a meaningful separation, but to his relief, Basch seemed to catch on.

"I... yes. It's been a long time, master Mid."

Balthier rewarded the captain for his cooperation with a vibrant, friendly smile. "You're more like to finish this steak than I... Come, sit."

Basch's gaze flickered slightly, puzzled by Balthier's generosity, but when the pirate nodded insistently at the empty chair at the table and pushed his plate toward the captain, Basch eased himself into it.

"You'll forgive me, but you look a wreck. What have you been doing to yourself?" Balthier nattered, scribbling on his napkin.

"I..." Basch stammered, confused. Balthier waved his hand in dismissal.

"No, never mind. I'm too curious for my own good. Go on, eat. Surely you could stand a good steak, my friend?"

Basch cut into the steak carefully, as if he thought it might vanish if he moved too quickly. "Aye. Thank you."

Balthier afforded him a lightning-quick wink before turning back to his map. "What brings you here?" he asked lazily, sketching another note onto the parchment.

"I require your aid in transport, master Mid. I have urgent business in Bhujerba, and I'm led to understand you are in possession of an airship."

"Business, hm. Audience with the Marquis, perhaps?" Balthier suggested, glancing up from his work with a solemn arch of his eyebrow.

Basch scowled; the man was two steps ahead of him again. Balthier merely shrugged lazily and turned his eyes back to his work.

"My ship's not exactly a passenger craft, so shuttling you may be a bit tricky. But given proper payment, I'm sure something can be arranged."

"Of... of course," Basch agreed, uncertain. Balthier winked at him again in what he hoped was a properly reassuring gesture and began rolling up the map.

"You'll forgive us for retreating so quickly, good captain, but we're in a bit of a rush," Balthier said cheerfully. "The usual nonsense to tend to, you know. If you wish to join us when we leave town, we'll be off again in a few days. Do think about it."

Balthier retreated without looking back, but left behind his napkin.

* * *

_Captain – _

_I hope you don't mind; I've taken the liberty of doing a little reconnaissance. _

_Her Majesty is alive. They've taken her to be executed, but there's still time._

_Unfortunately, there's a rather nasty bounty on your head now. _

_Don't speak to anyone. Make straight for hangar nine in the aerodrome. _

_We leave for Bhujerba in half an hour._

_(You don't have to trust me, but it might be wise of you to try.)_

_- Balthier_

* * *

Fran was waiting for Basch at the departure gate outside hangar nine, as the note had promised. She looked strangely solemn, and keenly inhume to his eye in this bustling place.

The airship waiting within startled Basch with its sleek glamour. It was like no Dalmascan ship he had known, or indeed any of the old Landisian junks he had seen lumbering silently over his homeland as a child.

Balthier was whistling something to himself, leaning against the hull of the ship with one shoulder. He looked tense.

"Captain," the pirate greeted him, rather perfunctorily. "I'm pleased you could join us. You're prepared to leave?"

"Aye," Basch said, squinting up toward the wings of the ship. They were folded over the back of her, in a strange configuration he couldn't even begin to comprehend. The fuselage was white steel, with brushed bronze and copper findings over her elaborate curvature. Basch could barely make out a few flashes of violet detailing, a feather here, a bit of scrollwork there. The ship was like an elaborate sculpture to Basch's untrained eye – Lovely but inscrutable.

Balthier turned and followed Basch's gaze up into the body of the ship. "Forgive me, I've not introduced you. This is the Strahl; she's the first and last of her kind."

"She flies well?" Basch asked, because he could think of nothing better to say.

Balthier nearly scoffed, but caught himself. "Well enough for a man in my line of work, if that tells you anything. I could bore you with her specifications, but I think you'd rather see for yourself what she can do."

A hatch opened on the side of the ship, and to Basch's surprise, a minor army of moogles spilled from within, led by a chirruping grey and white one with a spanner clutched in his little fist. Balthier grinned, immediately put at ease.

"Great dancing Heth. Nonno, have you any idea how glad I am to see you?"

"She's all in order, kupo," the little creature chirped, waving the spanner jovially. "Your conducer board was behaving badly, but I tightened the rims on the glossair ports myself, kupo. I was unable to put a permanent fix on the problem, but should the issue continue, I've put a wider door on the aft side of the control block. You can make adjustments yourself now, if you wish, kupo-po."

"You're a gentleman and a scholar," Balthier said, with a little salute. Nonno flapped his little red wings a few times, pleased.

"In exchange, you'll tell me how you managed the articulation in her wing design, kupo?"

Balthier glanced at his fingernails. "Of course... if I ever go utterly mad."

"You are cruel, kupo," Nonno said. "I must remember how you string me along."

Fran came into the hangar, her pack on her shoulder. "He yet hounds you for specifications? Perhaps you might indulge him with a hint, Balthier."

"When I'm dead, darling. This one's too clever," Balthier objected, smirking. "A single mention of trajectory points or differentials and he'll have my girl pegged before we're back in port."

Nonno gave a low trilling sound that might pass for a chuckle. "Good travel, kupo!" he chirped, and dashed away without another word, his troupe of assistants close behind. When they all had gone Balthier turned back to Basch, and the glimmer of amusement fled his eyes.

"All banter aside, you're aware of the hardship this little jaunt may well cause us, aren't you, captain?"

Basch shook his head slightly, put off his guard by the sudden gravity in Balthier's demeanor. "I... I apologize, master Balthier."

Balthier gave a sigh and jerked his shoulder in an exasperated half-shrug. Of course the captain didn't bloody well understand. It would be too simple if he did.

"Never mind. I'll get you to Ondore as promised, Captain, but leave me out of whatever nonsense ensues. Politics are anathema to me, to say the least, and the less I'm involved in this search-and-rescue, the better."

Basch frowned.

"Are we agreed?" Balthier prompted, falling into an impatient slouch.

"Aye..." Basch ventured at last, uncertain.

"Good. Now, follow me. I wasn't being humble when I said she's not much of a passenger craft; there are only two cabins, you see. Fran and I share the one, but the other is a bit disused; you may have to wade through a bit of paper to get to your bunk."

Basch found the cabin littered with maps and books, which he had expected, and blueprints, which he had not. The great piece of parchment spread over the bunk was riddled with airship sketches, all nearly identical, and long, complicated mathematical equations littered the margins of each sketch.

"it's a hobby of mine," Balthier said breezily, rolling up the parchment and tucking it into the corner of the room. "I fancy myself a designer of the things."

Fran made a small noise like a cough. Balthier shook his head.

"Never mind all of this nonsense; leave it for when we're in the air. If you'll follow me, we'll be taking off presently."

'_What are you doing?"_ Fran asked quite suddenly in Vieran, as he slipped into place at the helm.

"_What do you mean?"_ Balthier mumbled, without looking up.

"_You must decide. Are you speaking plain to our guest, or are you deceiving him?"_

"_Is it as black and white like that?"_ he asked. _"Nothing is ever so simple, I think."_

She graciously ignored his shaky grammar. _"How much must we hide?"_

"_I will tell him only what he needs to hear, needs to know. I must..." - _he struggled for the phrase a moment –_ "stay neutral."_

"_You are not neutral. Those who lie never are."_

"_Trust me," _he exhorted her. _"I have a plan."_

As the ship took off from the hangar, cloaked, and dropped quietly into the departure queue, Balthier glanced at Basch fon Ronsenburg out of the corner of his eye. How deep into the past would he have to go to make everything right again – and why was he finding himself so bloody resentful of his conscience?


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_The Sky City of Bhujerba_

_39 Thundramoon, 706_

Balthier led the line out of the aerodrome with a confident swagger, glad to be on neutral soil and out of Imperial reach.

"Before we go about rattling Bhujerban resistance cages looking for the Marquis, I think we'd do well to have a little jaunt through the mines. I've a date with, er..." He was quickly distracted by a boy sitting on the wall just ahead of them; he looked strangely familiar.

When they were nearly level with him he jumped down lightly from his perch and approached them. He looked no more than twelve. His blue eyes sparked from his smooth, pale face like little beacons. He was oddly dressed for a Bhujerban; as he drew nearer Balthier noted the crest of the Empire, two winged basilisks twined around one another, serving as the clasp for his cloak. A rich young Archadian on holiday, most likely.

But then the boy made the briefest eye contact with Balthier, and he felt gooseflesh rise on the back of his neck. Drace's voice cut through his memory like a tune from a music box, familiar and dear, yet wholly irritating for its repetition.

"_He's the dearest little boy. Say hello to my dear friend Ffamran, won't you, Larsa?"_

Surely he'd been hallucinating. He turned away and pretended to fuss with his sleeve; he was about to speak when the boy's voice piped rather insistently from behind them.

"I daresay you shouldn't be here. What are you..."

Balthier turned to see the boy quite vehemently scolding Basch's back. But when the captain turned to face him, the boy stopped short, a look of confusion in his eyes. He took in Basch first, and then took a proper second look at Balthier. "Forgive me..." - His eyes flicked away from the pirate, then back – "I thought you were someone else."

There was no mistaking him now. The long dark hair, the piercing blue eyes, and the complete lack of societal restriction -- Balthier had seen them before. This was the boy Drace had called Archadia's lucky penny: His Excellency Larsa Ferrinas Solidor.

Basch gave a slight bow. "No matter."

A heartbeat passed; the young Lord shook his head and returned Basch's bow, visibly puzzled.

"What brings you to Bhujerba, young Master?" Balthier asked, as casually as he could.

_Do you know who I am, little Solidor? Go on – cry for a guard -_

But Larsa eyes flickered only slightly, barely registering his recognition; he blinked twice. "I have business to attend to in the mine."

Balthier tilted his head and half-frowned, deliberately copying his father's signature gesture of bemused interest. "Is that so?"

Larsa nodded once, his bright blue eyes fixed with regal command on the pirate. He'd clearly made the connection with Cid, and didn't care a whit.

_What's your game, Good my lord? _

The boy took a step forward, addressing Fran now. "If I may -- Please, allow me to accompany you. I'll not be a burden to you and yours."

Balthier smirked, impressed by the young Lord's initiative. Did he mean to appeal to the Viera's feminine sensibility? Clever, for a child, but decidedly silly of him; Petitioning a Viera for a favour if you don't know her is kindred to attempting to pet a wildcat, after all. But then, the young Lord did always have a certain cheek. Balthier always liked him - even at the tender age of three the boy knew how to use his keen eyes and quick, polite smile. Gratifyingly enough, he seemed to be flourishing under Drace's watch, and he'd culled proper street manners enough to conduct himself anonymously.

All this aside, his very presence just screamed trouble.

"What manner of errand?" Fran asked.

Her accent and command of the language seemed to throw the young lord off somewhat, which was entirely predictable; he turned, surprised. "What errand? Well... I might ask the same of you."

And he turned to look Balthier straight in the eye once more with a commanding, if amused, look. The pirate raised his eyebrows and stared back, to buy time. The look in Larsa's eye was plain; he expected no less than obedience from Ffamran Mid Bunansa.

Balthier knew immediately that he would have to take on the task of cortege or be hanged, but if Basch caught wind of his political past at this juncture, he'd have a length of steel to answer to. Then there was the problem of the fact that the young Solidor knew him by sight, and now Basch as well.

Weighing options, Balthier tilted his head at the young lord. Larsa folded his hands over the head of his walking-stick and mirrored the gesture. Thankfully, he was looking at Balthier with the air of a child having discovered a particularly fascinating new playmate, and there was a light in Larsa's eye that suggested he was game for an unsupervised round of charades.

Balthier smirked slightly, jerked his head toward the mouth of the mine. "Right; come on then."

He may get a little pertinent information out of His Excellency, and have a little fun besides.

Larsa smiled; his eyes spoke of a mischievous gratitude. "Excellent."

"Do me a favour and stay where I can keep one eye on you; there should be less trouble that way."

Larsa glanced round the platform covertly, counting guards; Balthier almost smiled at his concern.

"For us both," the boy agreed.

'Your name, young master?" Balthier inquired, with a cock of one eyebrow. Even a game of charades needs perimeters.

"You may call me Lamont," Larsa rejoined smoothly, without a thought. He'd been rehearsing this; that boded well.

"Lamont? A pleasure. Balthier, at your service." He bowed, hoping the gesture would do in place of a salute.

The game was set; Larsa smiled. "Lead on, Master Balthier."

Balthier smirked and reached for the map; Fran was frowning at him, perplexed.

"Dn'jir jau'zhisec ktjr-hjum, Fran," he said casually, "Don't fret."

_He's just the king's child._

He had to suppress the urge to laugh when she cursed under her breath.

* * *

It was nearly noon when the party had made it down the first leg of Balthier's map. It was still three hours to the magicite, but Balthier was more than willing to take his time. A good foraging party knows when to slow down and enjoy the journey, and besides, the fiends in this mine seemed to have a fondness for jewels; Balthier's supply pouches were thick with them.

Fran caught up with Balthier on the first stairwell leading into the secondary dig. Larsa had gone ahead of them to aid Basch in a particularly nasty struggle with an errant skull warrior.

"_He is so young," _Fran said in Vieran, her voice touched with admiration.

"_We're all young by your lights, my heart, but he's grown in six years. A mischief maker, that one."_

Fran nodded. _"You are fond of him?"_

"_And what if I am? He's not his brother, to be sure. He's got spark."_

She glanced sidelong at him. _"He knows who you are?"_

"_Plainly. But if he calls me by name I may have to shoot him."_

Fran blinked, amused. _"I pray you jest."_

Balthier smirked. _"You doubt me? I'm wounded."_

She smiled and went ahead of him, nocking her bow. Balthier shook his head briskly and took the map from one pocket, a compass from the other.

Larsa's voice cut into his thoughts as the boy came round behind him. "A fair number of bats to contend with here; I'd not expected such."

"No? And whatever do they teach in those wretched Archadian schools?" Balthier drawled.

To his surprise, Larsa laughed. "Begging your pardon. Yes, it seems I am a little green." He leaned hard on his walking stick and blinked, almost somnolently. "If I may ask, what brings you to your current company, Master Balthier?"

Balthier shrugged. "Fran is my associate."

"And the captain Ronsenburg?"

Balthier glanced sidelong at the young lord. "You know of him?"

Larsa nodded, furrowing his brow slightly in childlike fascination at the glimmer of anxiety that flitted over Balthier's face.

"I owe the man a favour," Balthier offered at last. It was only partially a lie; the truth was too complicated by half.

"I see," Larsa murmured, and continued ahead. Balthier jogged to keep abreast with him.

"What of your father?" he asked quietly. Larsa threw him an anxious expression and flicked his gaze over Balthier's shoulder to where Fran stood, tucking a bat fang into her pack. Balthier followed his gaze, shook his head.

"Ah, Don't worry about Fran. She knows who you are, certainly, but she could keep a secret to her grave if she wanted to – in fact she's probably planning on keeping a few from me. And Captain Ronsenburg can't hear us at this distance; listen there, he's engaged with a skull soldier as we speak. If I may be so bold, I doubt he suspects a thing of you; if anything he's more suspicious of me."

Larsa shrugged; his eyes glittered with doubt. Balthier bowed very slightly.

"I want to talk with you, good My Lord. Just a chat; nothing more."

Larsa fixed him with an imploring, slightly frightened expression.

He so missed the halls of the magistrate -- the rich crimson and ink black of the carpet, the shining silver and black armour, the smells of boot polish and vellum and new leather. In spite of all, the richness of the court still haunted him. Now, here was the richest, handsomest jewel of them all; the young fledgling emperor that Adelaide Drace so adored. She took him under her wing when Gramis' wife died, and raised him. He had grown quickly, and well, in six years.

Balthier never thought he could be pleased to see a Solidor, but Larsa was hardly a Solidor at all; he was clever and generous and quick, and from the looks of things he was bored with the life his station afforded him. He was pure potential, and a boy keen enough in mind and heart to face most anything.

Or was the pirate just feeling stupidly optimistic about the whole mess?

How he longed for his stupid Judicer's helm, and the damned toy saber that went with it! He wanted to be a Judge again, if only for a day. For once he wanted to be proud of his station, as Drace was. Just for the sake of the thing, for five minutes, he wanted to be trusted the way only a Judge Magister can be trusted. Of course, if he couldn't manage it, all would be lost...

"As it pleases you, good My Lord," Balthier murmured, and held himself as straight as he dared.

_Trust me... please._

"Father is ill, but in good spirits," Larsa conceded at last. His face was casual, but his voice was a sea of doubt. The vague comment was of little use to Balthier, but a toe in the door is better than nothing at all.

"I see. And... Adelaide?"

Larsa frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"Drace is an old friend; you know that. Is she well?"

"She is," Larsa replied.

"Has she taught you to play chess yet?"

"I've tried my hand," Larsa offered, with a little humble shrug.

"Have you beaten her?"

"Only once."

Balthier raised his eyebrows. "She doesn't forfeit her game for your benefit? Good. She never went easy on me, either."

Larsa's lips twitched into the faintest smile. "You play?"

"I do."

"Perhaps I might try my strategy against you one day?"

Balthier looked askance at the young Lord. "I'd be honoured," he murmured. Catching himself out of his depth, he turned away from Larsa to dust off an old coffer that leaned against the wall.

"Anything useful?" Larsa ventured.

"It's just a potion," Balthier said, disappointed, when he found there was no room in his pack for another of the bottles.

"May I?"

Balthier tossed the faceted glass bottle in a gentle arc toward Larsa. "Catch. Collect the things, do you?"

Larsa tucked the potion into his satchel and dusted the cobwebs from his white silk gloves. Balthier raised his eyebrows.

'If you're worried about the state of your gloves, Lamont, perhaps you should put them away. It's wretched down here, and you'll have a better time with your sword barehanded anyway."

"Perhaps you're right," Larsa replied, and quickly removed the gloves, tucking them away in a pocket. When he turned to proceed down the corridor, Balthier thought he saw a little smile on the young lord's face.

_Honoured, I'm sure, _Balthier thought, and turned his attention back to his compass.

* * *

After a time, the eerie darkness of the mine was pierced in the distance by a peculiar glow. Fran sniffed the air, coughed.

"The mist thickens."

"_Tr'buac?" _Balthier asked, laying one hand on the supply pouch at his belt.

_The stone?_

Fran shook her head, and the look she gave him was almost frightened. Slightly on edge, Balthier strode forward a few meters and peered toward the glow of the long-neglected dig in the back of the mine. What was he expecting? would some great beast leap out from this peculiar little alcove and devour him? Shaking his head at himself, he strode forward and holstered his rifle, half as a challenge to himself to be calm. He almost didn't notice Larsa slip into the dig ahead of him, but he couldn't miss the little trinket that came from the boy's pocket. It was a small stone about the size of an egg, contained carefully in a little steel and glass frame... It looked dreadfully, darkly familiar.

"This is what I came here to see," Larsa said, and there was awe in his voice. "A raw vein of magicite, and every last piece a skystone..."

He paused in mid sentence and held up the stone to the light of the skystones surrounding him. Immediately, Fran began to cough.

"Fran?" Balthier ventured.

"My... chest. The mist... it..."

And then she gave a terrible shuddering gasp and fainted.

Simultaneously, a great river of mist jumped from the wall, all in silver and blue and gold fog. Balthier caught a glimpse of his own face in the wall of distortion, and then a rushing sound, like water over stone. The noise reminded Balthier of ice, and eerie golden-green light emanating from somewhere deep, somewhere cold and unfathomably ancient.

When the roaring subsided, Balthier could hardly see. He had been standing quite still, staring blankly at the great wall of stones that stretched in front of them. Now the alcove was nearly pitch black, except for the radiant beam of light that pulsed from the wretched stone in Larsa's hand. He held the stone aloft, turning it to examine the dazzling silver-blue core.

"Astounding. Doctor Cid's new ship could fly from Archades to Lemures with this in its engine, and straight through Jagd without a thought. He'll be quite pleased to see all I've accomplished with this sample of his work." His eyes were glittering in astonishment and delight.

Balthier scowled. But of course; Larsa Solidor was waving about a bit of nethicite. How wretchedly fitting for a Solidor to dabble in what he should not.

"How lovely for you... Nin ka'ran, Fran, fo'e? Na'trasje?"

_Are you all right, Fran, darling? Can you hear me?_

"A ka'ran... a' kue trec?" Fran replied, faintly.

_I am all right... where are we?_

"Still in magicite hell, I'm afraid," he said darkly, in Valendian. "You were only out for a minute or so. Don't worry, We'll get you out of here..." He turned immediately to Larsa. "I must say, that was quite the stunt. Fancy yourself an engineer, Lamont?"

Larsa looked up at him, startled, uncertain.

"Go on, hand it over. Magicite isn't a toy," Balthier said, and plucked the stone from the boy's hand. Larsa grabbed it back immediately, his eyes flashing.

"This stone is not yours to take. 'Tis manufacted nethicite, a gift from Doctor Cid."

Balthier sneered in spite of himself. "I have eyes. But that makes it bloody well all right for you to use it to foil another man's endeavors? I've led you straight through any number of undead that might have torn you limb from lights, and now here you are, all in a puff over your own cleverness. It's downright obnoxious of you, if I may be so bold."

Larsa straightened his posture. "I will not be spoken to this way."

_Ah, pulling rank on a thief. How delightfully naïve... your slip is showing, good My Lord._

Balthier leaned in close to the boy and half-whispered to him.

"Taken in with the Good Doctor's little plot, have you? Or was it your brother who talked you into this errand of yours? What are you up to?"

The boy frowned, authority in every line of his face. Balthier tilted his head gravely and raised his voice a fraction, changing the subject.

"What have they told you about me, Lamont?"

"They say you're mad," the boy said coldly, and his eyes were like ice in the dim light of the stone. Balthier smirked at his conviction.

"Naturally. And dangerous, to boot. Pirates are usually one or the other, after all." Balthier leaned against the wall, studied the nethicite's core with a shrewd eye. "How many men do they say I've killed, Lamont? A hundred? A thousand?"

The boy lifted his chin, blue eyes glinting with anger and anxiety. "You will hang for all you've done. Gabranth..."

Balthier's smirk dissolved as he cut over the boy. "All pretense of friendship gone, I see... but come, now. I'm nothing more than a thief and a paramour. Seducing women out of their jewels hardly warrants the gallows, wouldn't you say?"

"That is for the others to decide."

Balthier scowled. "Yes, the others. But why would they believe your story? You're only a child, even if you are Larsa Solidor."

Fran's ears turned sharply forward, and Basch straightened, alarmed. Lord Larsa of Archadia glared.

"How dare you."

"Yes. Well, I dare as I must, My Lord. Ah! No, you don't..."

Larsa had attempted to dash past, but Balthier was too quick; he grabbed the boy about the shoulders with one strong arm and held him fast, holding the caged piece of nethicite an inch from the boy's nose.

"One more word, if I may, before you run along to your cortege. Listen to me, now." He leaned close to the boy again, eyes glinting like brass. "You have seen phantoms and ghosts in this mine tonight, nothing more; your traveling party will tell you as much. But when you return home, should you see a phantom in a place you'd not expect it, or catch sight of seams and patches in the fabric of your world, remember: things are never as they appear."

Larsa snatched the nethicite from Balthier's hand and fixed the pirate with a frightened look; Balthier shook his head and smirked humorlessly.

"Off with you, then."

He released his grip, and the young lord darted away into the darkness, holding the stone ahead of him like a lantern. Basch and Fran watched him go, stunned; Balthier merely straightened his sleeve. After a long, uncomfortable moment, Basch addressed Balthier directly, his eyes hard.

"The Solidor boy will inform his father of our presence here."

"I count on it, good Captain."

"Why would you do this? The fates jest."

Balthier scowled. "I wish these fates of yours would leave me out of their machinations, Captain. As it stands, I see no reason to linger here any longer; we've found our prize, and lost it again to boot. Let's be off before we meet any more ill fortune."

He turned to Fran, lying at his feet.

"Tr'noth, a'gra. Kjun es... Ka'veth. "

_I'm sorry, I am. Come on... let's go._

Fran allowed him to hoist her into his arms, but she did not look at him until they were well out of the mine. Balthier knew he deserved it.

* * *

"All right, Fran. I'm a silver-tongued fool of a hume-child, and I've miscalculated, and you don't approve of my methods. You don't have to be glacial about it; I've already apologized."

Fran blinked up at Balthier from where she sat at the base of Kaff terrace's wall. Basch had gone to the nearest sundry merchant in search of a jar of esuna balm for Fran's swollen hands and feet. There was room for candor between partners while the captain was away.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Fran asked, in a low voice.

Balthier inspected his fingernails, considering. It was a fair question.

"Chess with Cid is a dangerous game, Fran. But perhaps I've not been plain with my intentions in all of this. If a man intends to ruffle the self-proclaimed Lion of Archadia, one must dance on the edge of a knife to draw his eye."

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning that we're going to have to use my presence on Gabranth's radar as bait."

Fran frowned. Balthier tilted his head and caught her liquid-ruby gaze once more with a faint, apologetic smirk.

"I know you don't like the sound of it; neither do I. But if you think about it, have we any other choice? We'll feign our usual fugitive routine until such time as we can circle in behind Cid unnoticed – picking up our cues from Gabranth along the way, of course. When the time comes we'll kill the old man and take the midlight shard for ourselves. Then all that remains is to send Ashe home to a triumphant accession of her throne, stone in hand, and see Vayne fall like so much sand to the bottom of the sea."

"You make it sound so simple," Fran mused. She did not smile.

"Simple doesn't mean easy," Balthier reminded her, and wandered off to look over the rail to the water below.

"I feel a fool," he muttered to her, without bothering to raise his voice. "I've gone and put you in harm's way."

He turned to look at her, leaning against the wall of the terrace. She spoke to him in hand-signs across the several meters between them, too weak to lift her voice over the roar of the wind.

_No, I simply follow you there, _her beautiful hands said, and he bowed his head to her in silent gratitude.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"Marquis Ondore announced my execution six months ago," Basch said. "If news of my survival were to spread, the marquis may find his position compromised."

Balthier chewed the inside of his cheek in consideration. "I'm to understand that the groups he's been funding bear little love for the empire. They won't be thrilled to hear that rumors of your death were, in fact, greatly exaggerated... But then again, ignorance isn't always bliss."

"Where do we begin?" Fran asked, getting to her feet.

"Hm," Balthier grunted, squinting into the crowd gathering ahead of them on the terrace. "If we were to raise a clamour to the effect of your survival, we may well get the resistance's attention. It would only follow that they turn us over to Ondore himself for consideration."

"What do you propose?" Basch asked.

"Meet me in the cloudborne in fifteen minutes," Balthier said, and turned to wander into the crowd. Fran followed him.

"Pardon him, if you will, captain; he enjoys his secrets," she commented to the captain, over her shoulder. Balthier smirked.

"What would you have me do?" she murmured.

"Get you to the cloudborne ahead of me, darling," he said. "Settle in with a nice Valeblossom wine and relax. I'll be in behind you to handle the rest."

"Planning to conduct a little theatrical impropriety, pirate?"

"Whenever am I not?" he murmured, with a small smirk.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Basch stepped into the Cloudborne and found the place bustling with people. Immediately, he heard a familiar voice.

"But bloody hell, isn't that Basch fon Ronsenburg?"

Basch watched as every eye in the room swiveled to inspect him. Balthier slouched at a table in the center of the room, cuddling a tankard of ale, and Fran was nowhere to be seen. Basch hoped vaguely that the man was only feigning drunkenness.

Balthier raised his eyebrows cynically. "You certainly look like that Kingslayer bastard... But come on, Landis, straighten up, let's look at you properly. I'd like to see precisely how drunk I am."

Annoyed at Balthier's tone, Basch decided to go the direct route and pray nothing would come of it. He approached the pirate's table.

"You've identified me, sir. I am who you say I am."

"_Haanta,"_ someone sitting nearby muttered.

Balthier set down his ale and grinned, spreading his hands to address the entire room in an overloud voice. "Well, call out the damned resistance! Their dearly reviled traitor's come home to roost. God, I must be drunk."

Balthier began to giggle to himself, and a murmur rippled through the bar. Basch folded his arms and waited.

"Well even if you're a sodding liar, you're certainly the spitting image," Balthier slurred after a moment. "But what will Ondore say when he finds out you're not dead in the ground, eh?"

Basch put on a scowl that could melt stone. The pirate tilted his chair back onto two legs and grinned. "Come on, Kingslayer, tell us; how badly did that Raminas B'Nargin sod beg for his life, eh?"

Wait... Heth, he'd gone too far. Basch straightened, infuriated, and unfolded his arms, but Balthier began to giggle again, wiping false tears of mirth from his eyes. Every eye was on the two of them now, and Basch was breathing through his teeth.

"You're going to hit me, aren't you?" Balthier drawled, tilting his head.

Basch advanced on him. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

"You're looking to raise a clamour, aren't you, Landis?" Balthier drawled. "Just hit me. Do I scare you, hm?"

The word "clamour" seemed to hit its mark, but Basch hesitated – no doubt his sense of propriety had prevented him from getting into a brawl even so much as once in his life. Pity.

"Go on, Landis. I'll give you a clean shot," Balthier jeered, getting to his feet. "Impress me, you great hulking brainless bastard."

Goaded by the insult, Basch grit his teeth and swung a punch, and then another. Balthier took the first punch and ducked the next, swinging a counter-punch into the captain's gut. Basch doubled over, wincing; when he straightened again, Balthier had another punch ready, which he deflected, and quickly followed with a quick twist of the arm; Balthier groaned and went to his knees, delighted to find that he was bleeding rather dramatically from the lip and a handful of men had already converged to restrain them.

"You will come with us... both of you," one of them said.

To Basch's complete astonishment, Balthier winked before getting to his feet.

* * *

Basch and Balthier were led out of the bar without ceremony, much to the other patrons' interest. Balthier continued to feign drunkenness until they were well into the street, at which point he straightened his posture and began to dab at his bleeding lip.

"Nice shot, Captain," he commented.

"At the risk of sounding bitter, you earned it," Basch replied darkly. He was clearly still seething over Balthier's nasty remark about Raminas, and was bent slightly – ah, there, below the ribs, he'd caught a punch in his side where a scar had yet to properly heal.

The pirate shrugged. "Yes, well... I earn all my injuries. Apologies for tagging you like that; I hope you're not too bad off."

"How inebriated are you, if I may ask?"

"Quite sober, I assure you. I never drink when there's business to attend to."

"Is a pirate's business always in disreputable bars?" Basch mumbled. Balthier ignored him; he'd come round soon enough.

Their escort, a young Bhujerban dressed in a scholar's uniform, frowned at Balthier. "You know one another?" he asked.

"In passing," Balthier said vaguely.

Basch looked away from him, doubly irritated. "Your affection for dramatics may get us killed. Where is the lady Fran?"

"She was in the bar the entire time, playing lookout; she's tailing us right now, in fact. You didn't see her?"

"Nay," Basch muttered. He had begun to resign himself to the idea that the young pirate meant to remain a step ahead of him, no matter the circumstance. The secrecy of the thing was growing tiresome.

Their escort led them to a door in the back of the tavern building, took a key from his breast pocket, and unlocked it. Balthier raised his eyebrows.

"The resistance is hiding back here? Not exactly earning high marks for originality, are they?"

"We do as we must, master Mid," the man replied, steeping aside to let them pass. Basch frowned. Just how famous was this impetuous man he'd fallen in with?

"Here they are, Hamal. Master Mid claims this man to be Captain Basch," their nameless escort said. Fran slipped into the room behind them all and leaned against the wall, silent like a cat. Basch shook his head slightly, baffled at the way she appeared in the room as if from thin air.

"Had I not seen it with my own eyes I may not have believed it," Hamal rejoined, looking Basch up and down with raised brows. "And yet here he is, dead six months and knocking on our door. But to what end?"

Basch lifted his chin. "I must reach Ondore. It is vital that I speak with him."

"Clearly you wish to challenge his ruling on your execution, and this I understand. But you must know that we can offer you no support in whatever endeavors you undertake, captain. Your presence here is a liability."

"My purposes merely take me through Dorstonis; my end goal takes me far from your circles. I assure you I shall not tarry."

Hamal picked at his fingernails, black eyes narrowed doubtfully. "As you insist. But you will be carefully watched; Dalmasca's schemes grow passing bold indeed."

Balthier quirked an eyebrow.

"But, enough. To Ondore with them," Hamal said, with a wave of his hand. Just as quickly as they were led into the room, Pirate and soldier were led out again, and now with Fran on their heels.

* * *

Halim Ondore IV was waiting for the three travelers in his study. He didn't seem to see fit to turn toward them as they entered, so all the view they had of him as they approached his desk was the back of his aeronite-hide chair. The picture window behind him let in a view over the magicite cliffs beyond his garden. The violet and blue of raw skystone jutted from between cliffs of volcanic glass, and the scaffolding surrounding Lhusu's mine crawled with ivy and waterweed vines. The severity of the view was echoed by Ondore's choice in décor; His hardwood desk had been topped with a sheet of the same black volcanic glass, etched with elaborate Bhujerban scrollwork and his initials. The walls were draped with handsome curtains in violet silk, edged in gold thread. Balthier might have been impressed by the richness of it all if it weren't for the inhospitable silence that came from Ondore himself.

"Your Excellency..." Basch began, but at last Ondore turned his chair. His eyes were bloodshot.

"You have come," he said bluntly.

Basch bowed in the affirmative. Balthier couldn't help but notice that he looked rather anxious, as though he wanted to bolt for the door. Ondore steepled his fingers, tapped them together.

"I had thought your brother would have done away with you by now, Captain," Ondore rejoined, in a strange, half-bored voice.

"The Fates saw fit to grant me their mercy," Basch replied. "But attempts to reconcile my past have fallen on deaf ears. Thus I have come to seek your aid."

"You would seek Amalia as well?" Ondore asked immediately, in the same tired voice.

Basch bowed in the affirmative once more. "You of all people understand that it is vital that the lieutenant be returned to Dalmasca with all haste. The consulate would see our efforts disbanded, and she must be in place to prevent such."

"Indeed..."

There was a weighted pause; the Marquis turned to study Balthier for a moment. "But what of these?" he asked Basch at length, tilting his chin toward Fran and the pirate.

"My companions are responsible for my liberation from Nalbina. I owe them my life." There was a note of genuine gratitude in Basch's voice; Balthier exchanged a glance with Fran.

"Your names?" Ondore asked, a little gravely.

"I am Fran," Fran replied, with a deferential nod of her head. Ondore inclined his head in return and turned his solemn, half-lidded eyes on Balthier, expectantly. The look of scrutiny unnerved him.

"Balthier, at your service," the pirate said, bowing.

Ondore frowned slightly. "Yes, I have heard of you. You are taking asylum here under the name Mid Demensas, are you not?"

Balthier tried not to fidget. "That's correct."

"You prefer Bhujerba to the docks of Balfonheim, I take it?"

What a peculiar question. "Indeed. Anarchy is not to my taste, your Excellency."

Ondore raised his eyebrows slightly. "Nor was Nalbina, I see."

Balthier was unsure whether this was meant as a jest or a reprimand, so he decided not to reply. There was another heavy, uncomfortable pause as a large airship passed by, banking to port with an odd whine. Balthier vaguely wondered if her engine needed tuning. Ondore's eyes were sharp, prodding; Balthier got the distinct impression of being dissected.

"I am to understand you are a mechanic as well as a pirate, master Balthier?"

Balthier gave a faint shrug. "In my spare time I offer such services to my contemporaries, yes."

The marquis drew a sheet of paper from his desk drawer and began to scribble something. The room was still again but for the scratching of his pen. Fran shifted her weight onto one leg, and when Balthier glanced over at her he saw that her eyes were slightly narrowed.

"I fancy myself an enthusiast of airship design, you see," Ondore commented, finishing his note with a flourish. "I am considering the authorization of a rather large addition to Bhujerba's trade fleet; might you have a look at the specifications? Your aid would be greatly appreciated." He folded the sheet of paper and held it out with two fingers. Balthier took it but did not open it. Ondore gave a prompting gesture. "Do tell me what you think. Is my proposal to your liking?"

Balthier unfolded the sheet of paper and felt his heart leap into his mouth.

_It comes to my attention that you are F. Bunansa of Archades._

_I believe your father is looking for you._

_Return Ashelia to me unharmed and I shall not turn you over to Vayne._

Balthier caught himself holding his breath. If Ondore was working for Ghis, that meant... no, it meant too many things to ponder comfortably. He rearranged his features into a look of vague interest and handed the sheet of paper to Fran. She glanced at it, flicked one ear in a very vague gesture, and tucked the sheet of paper into the pocket of her shrug.

"It will be a pleasure doing business with you," Balthier said as politely as he could, bowing at the waist.

"I am pleased you approve," Ondore said, without smiling, and turned his attention back to Basch. "What would you have me do?"

Basch did not reply. His hands were folded in formal at-ease behind his back, and his face was a mask. Ondore leaned back in his chair. "You make no demands? Very well..." His black eyes flitted to the back of the room. "Gentlemen, take them to Ghis."

Balthier exhaled heavily as a guard stepped forward to gently take his arm. _"This isn't exactly what I had in mind,"_ he muttered to Fran, in Vieran.

"_Even the best laid plans know ruin,"_ Fran replied. _"We are ready?"_

"_Ready enough,"_ he muttered, sighing, as Basch went ahead of them out of the room.

_* * *_

_Bhujerban Airspace_

_The H.R.H. Shiva_

_(An hour later)_

Larsa Solidor excused himself from Ghis' watch and made his way to the brig. Ashelia B'Nargin had been waiting there for two days now; it was time to pay her a visit.

He found her with her knees to her chest, staring sullenly at the opposite wall of her cell. He was struck by how childlike she appeared in this position; all accounts had told him she would be straight-backed and commanding no matter the circumstance, cold and inhume in her desire to avenge. But Perhaps informing her of Ondore's latest arrest would bring her some measure of comfort.

Larsa cleared his throat. "Lady Dalmasca, if I may speak with you a moment."

Ashe looked round at him, and her eyes narrowed. "A child? What cruel joke is this?"

Taken aback, Larsa bowed. "I am Larsa Ferrinas Solidor of Archadia. I assure you I mean no ill."

"You are the Basilisk, infant though you may be, Solidor," Ashe snapped. "Surely you know your assurances mean nothing to me."

"Granted," Larsa replied, cowed by her venom, pride wounded by her exaggeration of his youth. He should have anticipated this.

"What do you want?" Ashe demanded, scowling.

"You are not the only prisoner aboard, Lady Ashe," he rejoined, choosing his words carefully. "Three civilians were apprehended at Halim Ondore's estate not an hour hence. They arrive shortly; I would that you are on deck to receive them."

"Why?"

Her reply held the heat of suspicion. Mention of other prisoners seemed to unsettle her, for now her hands itched for the hilt of a sword; Larsa could see it in the lay of her arms. The right she held bent and stiff, at the ready for swift movement into action, and the left remained at her side, posed in ladylike repose but equally tight, as if waiting for a blow that would not come.

"I am told one Basch Fon Ronsenburg is among them," Larsa explained, hoping her fury would redirect into ease. Do his dismay her expression leapt to one of fear instead. The righteous anger in her eyes slipped, and for a moment Larsa thought he saw a glimpse of youth in her; then the flash of vulnerability vanished as she crossed the cell to grasp the bars. Her eyes were stone, and she looked like she might scream.

Almost unconsciously, Larsa stepped back from the door.

"The man you speak of is dead," Ashe snapped. "Criminals and traitors of his stripe are not loosed from their chains lightly. Heth Himself has dealt the kingslayer justice."

Larsa couldn't help but notice that she spoke of Dalmasca's death-god with familiarity. He couldn't say he envied her this.

"It would appear not," Larsa replied at length, "For he travels free; I encountered him myself in Bhujerba, in the company of pirates."

This last word seemed to unhinge something in the princess; her glare intensified, a hint of fear touching it. "What did you say?"

"He travels with pirates -- an Archadian and a Viera. I ken not his choice of companions, but…"

The princess turned abruptly and stalked away from the bars, a caged wolf. "Then they are free, and they follow me, bringing with them my shame. I should have expected little else. But why? What have they to gain?"

Confused, Larsa stepped forward again, hoping to dissuade her from her peculiar burst of anger. "Lady Ashe…"

She turned suddenly and glared at him, not a hint of compromise in her face. "Enough. The traitor lives, the pirates are free, and my shame mounts by the hour. Leave me in peace, lest I find the strength to bend these bars and break your neck. There is nothing left for me to lose, and the fates prevent me gain; thus I do not hesitate at the thought of murder."

Larsa could tell by the heat in her voice that the threat was hardly empty. Grateful for her lack of a weapon, anxious to be in the company of armed guards once again, he bowed uncertainly.

"I meant not to grieve you. I apologize."

She didn't reply; in fact she seemed not to hear. Her eyes were sharp, distracted by some unknowable revelation that has slipped past him. He turned away from the cell, thinking of Drace; she would surely admonish him for his grievous errors in judgment.

Belatedly, Larsa reminded himself that he had avoided mentioning Ffamran by name, and with ease. The pirate would be pleased to know this, but what good the continued charade would serve was yet to be seen.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Shiva's exterior service elevator needed oil; the engine moaned with neglect. Under cover of the droning, Balthier was whispering as quietly as his breath would allow.

"Bes'akre fezt. Dr'tatre a'nenis, qwe'dr n'cet pic Vales."

_Keep your eyes front. If he speaks to you, pretend you can't speak Valendian._

Fran nodded. "Eih... Lh'riis ne."

_Yes... Calm down._

Balthier tried not to scowl. "Dr'ge es lha'tre galiit sr'a, nin ueth a Lh'riis?"

_He's like to try to kill me, and __you want me to calm down?_

She did not look at him. "Ga'tec, fo'e."

_Be still, darling._

He shook his head. "Ne'kaduen a."

_You confound me._

"Shut up over there," one of the guards snapped.

"Right," Balthier said crisply, raising his voice a little. "Eyes front, mouth shut, all that." He might have saluted if it weren't for the manacles. Fran made a small sound of disapproval, and he pressed his lips together. A_ pirate never betrays fear,_ he reminded himself. _A pirate is always on the level, no matter how the sky roils about him. _Fran's left ear twitched, and he imagined she was listening to his heart. The thought calmed him, and he exhaled softly through his teeth.

When the elevator ground to a halt, Balthier glanced to his left; for a moment he thought he saw Basch's lips moving. The man's eyes were closed, and his face placid. _Praying? How noble of you,_ Balthier thought. He was almost envious for a moment that the captain had such a ritual to fall back on without fear of looking the fool.

As the door of the elevator ground open with another tooth-rattling moan of mechanical neglect, their Archadian warden announced the arrival of his quarry to the armored figure lurking ahead of them.

"Prisoners on deck, Your Honour."

Bertralan Ghis of Archadia's second division stood with his back to the elevator. Balthier recognized him immediately by the absurd puffery of his formal armour; the man had never been without his burgundy and gold breeches, chains and embroidery and irrelevantly decorative medals pinned to his sleeves. Balthier almost scoffed aloud, but the sight of a second figure emerging from behind the control screen stole his attention and his annoyance evaporated into anxiety.

Ashelia B'Nargin wore an expression of such fury that Balthier wondered if she might turn them all to stone. To his left, he saw the captain straighten into military bearing and exhale, preparing himself. The pirate could fairly hear Basch's mind ticking, counting off escape routes, strategizing, his attention fixed firmly on the princess.

"Come you forward," Ghis said, turning toward the procession, and Ashe came forward on quick, urgent strides to meet them. Basch bent to one knee and bowed his head; Balthier thought faintly of a kicked puppy. From this position Basch addressed the woman, his voice resonating from somewhere deep in his chest, round and formal and unmistakably grateful.

"Your Majesty."

Ashe's face contorted, and she struck the captain full across the face. Basch took the blow and drew a slow, bracing breath.

"You dare show your face here?" the princess snarled. "You refuse to die and leave me in peace?"

Basch bowed his head, deference hinted with stubbornness, and did not answer. Ashe scowled.

"And you," she said suddenly, turning to Balthier. "You dare defy the sentence dealt you for your crime?"

"The crime is done, but the debt is left unpaid, princess," Balthier rejoined. "I've come to pay it now."

She narrowed her eyes. "A serpent with a penchant for riddles? Hold your tongue, or I'll cut it loose."

Balthier bowed, very pointedly. _I've saved your life twice, and you're still acting hunted? How tiresome._

The corner of Ashe's mouth crooked into a scowl. "Now that you see fit to show deference fit for a lady, you will return the dusk shard to me."

Basch raised his head all at once, startled; Ghis stepped forward and began to chuckle.

"What is this I hear – the dusk shard? Had I known you would serve as bait for our current company, good lady Ashe, I might have forgone your interrogation entirely. My apologies for the unpleasant inconvenience." He glanced past her, to Balthier, and his brass helm tilted in interest. "A pleasure to welcome you aboard, pirate. But are the rumours true?"

"Rumours are of no consequence to me, Your Honour," Balthier said, flatly. "I know only my own affairs."

"I have been misinformed? You know nothing of the dusk shard's whereabouts?" Ghis mused.

Balthier stood his ground. For a moment the only sound was the thrumming of Shiva's engine, far below the bridge. Ghis' helm glowered at him.

"For one so infamously silver-tongued, your silence deafens, pirate. Very well; I take it you will not object if I detain your associate for questioning?"

The threat of violence was plain in the Judge's voice. Fran lowered her chin and waited, but Balthier saw her eyes dilate and knew she was afraid. The only thing that frightened Fran was the scent of sadism. Clearly, to hold firm against Ghis would end in blood.

Balthier sneered, silently drawing the shard from his pocket and holding it out at arm's length. Ashe rewarded him with a dark, venomous look, and Basch hung his head again – but Fran stepped closer, and he heard her exhale. They would all be better off this way. Besides which there was always time to steal the stone back again, when the opportunity arose.

Ghis took the shard in hand and held it to the light. "I am pleased you see reason. Indeed, Cidolphus will be greatly pleased with your cooperation."

To show his enthusiasm for the concept, Balthier raised his eyebrows doubtfully and fell into a mute, sullen slouch. For a long time, Ghis' helm leered its blank disapproval. Balthier could feel the man calculating, examining, turning the outlaw over in his mind. Something had changed in his demeanor, but it was impossible to know exactly what -- if only he could see the man's face. But, of course, masks have always been part and parcel of every Archadian official's arsenal – and none could claim such more dearly than Balthier himself.

"Take them away," Ghis drawled at last, with a wave of his hand. "The Lady Ashe will be quartered separately."

* * *

Basch was not pleased.

"So you carried the shard with you all along? I might have known I could not trust you. The fates jest."

Balthier shook his head, swallowed a chuckle of irritation. "The contents of my pockets unnerve you, good captain? I cry your mercy, but I'm not about to throw Fran to the wolves, all for a mere bauble..."

A guard cut across him; there was that familiar voice again. "Quiet over there. Eyes front!"

Basch continued in a low murmur. "My charge lies with the protection of said 'bauble,' and my Lady's safety, master Balthier. I'll not stand for any man who prevents me from the fulfillment of my duty, no matter the..."

Balthier scoffed. "Oh, I understand. Duty, honour, and all that. But speaking as we are of your charge - and you'll forgive me saying so - I don't think the princess was all that pleased to..."

The other warden cut across him this time. "I thought 'e told you t'shut up!"

The guard swung his staff, making to crack Balthier across the ear with it. In a flash the pirate's military training kicked into gear -- he turned, grabbed the staff in both hands, and twisted, and the man tumbled to his knees. Ahead of them, Fran was a blur; she twisted, kicked, spun again. The guard beside her fell like a stone, his neck broken.

Balthier shouted. "Da'hwue, tn'lua ves!"

But before Fran could turn, the imperial mage coming up silently behind her went down with a broken nose, cursing. Their warden had done their job for them. The man stopped, fumbled with the latch of his helm, and removed it. The face beneath it was Dalmascan.

"Azelas," Basch exclaimed, his face widening with relief. Balthier tensed.

_Damn it, just who I need to see. Vossler bloody Azelas._

* * *

_Seventh Division Raid_

_Palace Galtea – The Main Stair_

_15 terramoon, 699_

_(Six years ago)_

_Ffamran held out his saber in awkward challenge, glaring at the hulking bodyguard who stood between him and his escape point. "You will let me pass," he said, and immediately regretted it; his voice suddenly wasn't behaving itself. He sounded like a woman. Predictably, the guard frowned in confusion. _

"_Who are you?"_

_Ffamran shook his head and glanced over his opponent's shoulder at the wide-open front hall, itching for freedom. "I am not of consequence... Please, I don't wish to hurt you."_

_First came Lieutenant Astrac's voice, rising in confusion over the clatter of swords. "Your Honour!"_

_Then Sealus' warm, familiar accent, imploring -- "Good Your Honour! Orders, sir!"_

"_Stand down!" Ffamran shouted, but his voice was too light to carry over the clattering of armour. He glanced toward the sound of the skirmish once, twice. _

_Just hang on – Don't die on me._

_He turned back to the Dalmascan guard, straightened the line of his saber. "Please, let me pass. We mean to make retreat..."_

_A scream of pain from somewhere below them, and a Dalmascan voice, rising in panic._

"_Engage... Engage! Azelas, where are you?"_

"_Steady!" the man called Azelas cried back. "Hold formation!"_

_And then another voice, Archadian this time. _

"_Get back, you bloody bastards!" It was Reslan; clearly he didn't know when to quit._

"_I said stand down, Lieutenant!" Ffamran repeated, fairly screaming now; the order was still not heard._

"_I cannot let you pass. You will lay down your weapon and come with me," Vossler said, failing to hide his astonishment. He obviously thought the whole thing was some badly-planned ruse. Ffamran considered his options. Consent to arrest and be court-martialed for his mistake, should he ever see home again... or resist, and hope to survive to see the exit._

"_What if I don't?" he snapped, in a wavering voice._

_Vossler drew his sword. _

_Ffamran felt the rush of adrenaline in his blood and he twisted, made to dash past. He moved like a panther, swiftly and quietly; he nearly broke through, but Vossler swung hard with his sword to block his way. Ffamran blocked the sword and countered with a sloppy roundhouse. The kick didn't meet its mark, but his opponent fumbled his sword. Panting, Ffamran slipped around him and nearly darted free, but Vossler grappled for him and attempted to force his arms behind his back. Ffamran elbowed him hard in the ribs, bruising him with the tip of one of his vambraces, and followed with a gauntlet to the guard's nose._

_As the man struggled to recover, Ffamran fumbled his saber, dropped it. _Damn it, Bunansa,_ he mouthed to himself._

_The princess shouted, her back to the wall._

"_Stop... I order you to stop! Leave him alone!"_

_Ffamran was startled to hear the girl speak. Caught unaware, he barely ducked the bodyguard's sword. Heart pounding now, he blocked with his saber once more, shoved the guard away from him with one knee, and hit him hard in the head with the heavy pewter pommel of his weapon. The man dropped unconscious to the marble floor._

"_Vossler!" the girl shrieked. She turned toward her guard's assailant, eyes wide. "Why are you doing this? Who are you?!"_

_Ffamran hesitated again, panting with exertion, and a single thought dashed through his mind – This is mad! – But now his path was clear. Relieved, he gave a slight bow to the princess, turned, and sprinted down the courtyard wall toward freedom._

"_If you ever show your face here again, I will see you dead! Begone!" the girl shouted after him._

_Sealus fell in behind Ffamran as he fled, and Reslan too, covered in blood. Ffamran waited, watched, but there was no sign of Astrac._

"_Abort! Seventh Division, abort!" Ffamran shouted._

_Damn it... damn it... bloody buggering damn it._

* * *

Balthier bowed stiffly. "My thanks for your aid, Captain."

_At least he doesn't know my face, he thought. And I'm a tenor now, not a sodding soprano. Heth._

Vossler nodded, distracted. "I do what is necessary."

"Hn," Balthier muttered, wondering what the man might deem "necessary" should the truth slip. But then Vossler turned to Basch and held out his arm.

"Faram be praised, Basch. Faram be praised. You live..." His voice was warm, astonished.

Basch nodded and clasped his comrade's arm in greeting, confused. "Aye. But you are here? I don't understand. Dracurian told me you had been captured in battle."

"Captured, yes. Nearly killed. But your brother has laid his hand plain, and too soon. Faram be praised," he repeated.

Basch recoiled slightly "My brother ...What?"

"I was interrogated by the man who killed My Lord – one Judge Magister Gabranth. He is the twin brother you once spoke of, or I am mad."

"He is," Basch said, faintly. He looked like he might be ill.

"Your brother thought you dead, and so confessed his crime to me. Thank the Gods you live... but..."

He turned back to Balthier, narrowed his eyes. "Pirates, Basch?"

Basch explained Balthier's hand in his liberation, briefly and with liberal gratitude in his voice. Vossler nodded, his eyes firmly on the subject of their conversation. Balthier leaned against the wall to keep himself from fidgeting and tried to appear politely disinterested in the retelling.

"Dalmasca is in your debt, Pirate," Vossler said, when the story was through. "Your name?"

"Not at all... Balthier, at your service," Balthier rejoined, straightening from his slouch and bowing. He was beginning to tire of offering his damned service to those who wanted him dead. To his relief, Vossler quickly turned toward the princess, his mind clearly on other matters.

"It was not easy traveling, reaching Bhujerba in time to intercept My Lady. But I have been hiding here under cover of disguise for two days, waiting. T'was not lightly I begged Ondore's aid. But now we must make haste to reach the brig." He turned, hesitated. "If only I could remember the way; these halls twist and turn to drive a man out of his senses."

Balthier raised his eyebrows, recalling the blueprint. _Three intersections astern from the bridge, turn left, forward five more. Take the service lift two floors, turn right, and there you are. There's nothing simpler._

"If I may, captain..." he said. Vossler granted him his attention and he shut his mouth again, brain ticking away madly. "There's a map kiosk ahead of us. It had the look of such, anyway. Where there's a kiosk, there's usually a map."

_Sloppy, stupid, pathetic. Silver tongue indeed. Pfah._

"Good," Vossler said. "Thank you."

Balthier inclined his head. As Vossler and Basch proceeded in the proper direction, the pirate caught Fran watching him, and her eyes flashed with a secret smile. _I'm glad you approve, _he thought, and fell in behind the rest.

_* * *_

In Brig C, the party found Ashe sitting on the bunk inside her cell, arms around her knees, eyes closed, lips moving furiously. _These Dalmascans and their prayers..._

"Your Majesty... You are quite whole?" Vossler exhorted her, relief in his voice. She startled and jumped to her feet.

"Vossler? By the gods..."

To Balthier's astonishment, Ashe fairly swooned into her bodyguard's arms. Captain Azelas took her by the shoulders and bolstered her carefully, a look of professional concern in his eyes – but Balthier couldn't have missed Ashe's look of adoration if he tried. She was so glad to see him it was nearly indecent.

"Please, my lady," Vossler said, under his breath. Ashe averted her eyes from his face.

_Save me from the evil horrid Archadian beasts, Vossler, _Balthier thought, smirking to himself. _Faram preserve me. Oh, Vossler. Sigh, simper, swoon. Pfah. _

Basch's expression was one of faint discomfort – whether for Vossler's dignity or his own fate at Ashe's hand, Balthier was uncertain. When Ashe turned her attention to him, Basch rearranged his features and bowed. "Good my Lady," he muttered.

"Silence," Ashe snapped. "You are not to speak to me, traitor."

Vossler cut in. "If I may, your Majesty. There is treachery afoot that runs deep, beyond what I can explain. Time runs short, and I cannot elaborate – but do not speak ill of Basch. He has paid his due, and mine for me. I ask you find the heart to trust in him."

Ashe scowled. "You speak of fairy tales, Vossler..." Then she looked into his eyes, and something shifted in her. "...But as you insist."

It would seem the princess had a rather extreme view of Dalmasca's elite guard – they were either saints or demons, and only the former were worthy of her. How droll.

"We need to hurry," Balthier ventured. "Shiva's security will be upon us any moment."

"But how do we proceed?" Basch asked, glancing back the way they had come. "Perhaps the service elevator..."

Once again, Cid's blueprint came into Balthier's head unbidden, marked with a dozen revision notes in his own sprawling handwriting. He saw the alarm points clearly even now, marked in red ink. There were seven between the brig and the elevator, and that was...

"...Too far to run without setting off the alarms," Balthier said aloud, without thinking. "But if we take the concourse to deck C..."

Fran's breath caught audibly in her chest. Basch, Vossler and Ashe all turned to gape at him. _Heth and gallows and bugger all, my damned mouth, _Balthier thought, forcing himself to smirk. But when in doubt, think backwards...

"Come now; you saw the map back at the lift, Captain Azelas," he rejoined, in a bored voice. "I noted a legend marking a docking-point somewhere off deck C. An aircutter bay, I believe... We do need to get to a ship if we want a clean escape, unless I'm mistaken."

Fran exhaled, and Basch tilted his head in consideration of the pirate.

"It'll be a jaunt if we stay low and keep our eyes open, like proper fugitives," Balthier drawled, glancing up the hallway to watch for guards. "But we've got to hurry – there isn't much time."

"We will cut your path, Majesty," Basch said, with a slight bow.

Ashe stamped her foot. "I won't place my trust in thieves and convicts, no matter your concessions, Vossler," she huffed.

Balthier quirked an eyebrow. "Is this motley cortege not to your taste? Very well, tarry as you like – I'm led to understand Ghis means to kill you anyway. It's your neck."

"Aye," Basch said briskly, a note of anxiety in his voice. "We've no time for suspicion. We will follow master Balthier."

Ashe quailed, and Vossler raised his eyebrows, taken aback. "You truly do trust them? Then, as you wish. Lead the way, pirate."

Gabranth's knightly shadow exhorting one and all to trust a pirate? Well. For better or for worse...

It was odd to lead the way around Cid's security traps, but Balthier was sure to avoid every alarm, for his own sake if not for anyone else's. The halls of Leviathan's concourse were blessedly abandoned, but for a few errant mastiffs; this he had expected. What he wasn't expecting was to encounter his own security system in the engine room. He was so pleased, he nearly forgot to feign irritation.

"Damn it all," Balthier said. "This security cypher's so deep I could swim in it."

"_Don't boast. It's unseemly,"_ Fran teased, in Vieran.

"_Can't a man take pride in his own work anymore?"_ Balthier muttered in reply, his fingers pattering over the control panel. To make his point, he intentionally missed the last button on the security code, prompting an ugly, but quite harmless, beep. Fran sniffed in amusement; Ashe winced.

"Really," Balthier drawled. "Such an awful noise could put a man out of his skin."

"I will mention your complaint to Shiva's encryption designer, should I encounter him," Larsa said crisply, coming up behind them all. Balthier turned on his heel and bristled. _Are you trying to be clever, or trying to get me killed? Little brat._

"I had hoped I would encounter you in these halls, master Balthier," Larsa said, with a bow.

Balthier forced himself to bow in return. "An unexpected honour, to say the least," he said.

The boy smiled faintly, turned to Vossler. "You are captain Azelas? You will follow me; I have secured an Atomos for your purposes. We must be quick."

"What of our purposes? You know who we are, and you mean to aid in our escape?" Ashe's eyes were wide, beset with a mix of doubt and alarm.

"Good lady Ashe, I have had a fair opportunity to contemplate your plight. Encountering the good Captain Ronsenburg alive, and meeting you, has laid a hidden thread bare. I would that we might pull at this thread and see what unravels."

"You'd implicate yourself in our illicit affairs for benefit of your curiosity? Well," Balthier said, with a shrug.

"I fail to see how my motivations are a pirate's concern," Larsa said conversationally.

Balthier raised his eyebrows. "I merely make a habit of questioning a sudden turn of good fortune from hands such as yours, my Lord. But, never mind; what was that about moving quickly?"

"You will follow me," Larsa said again, and gestured them all onward.

The Atomos was predictably cramped; a courier craft built for two could hardly bear five comfortably. Fran took the pilot's seat, flicked both ears in a syncopated gesture of concentration, and opened the throttle to a leisurely crawl.

"We'll be caught if we don't speed up," Ashe snapped.

"Be still," Fran murmured, and banked gently to the left; Balthier caught the restrained note of irritation in her voice at being ordered about. As Ashe reflexively hunched into herself, away from the blazing naked blue of the sky beyond the windscreen, Fran crawled Atomos into the departure queue. When the dashboard beeped she flicked one ear in slight surprise.

"I hadn't expected them to say hello," she mused. Balthier smirked; she sounded just like him.

"Faram help us," Ashe whimpered, leaning closer to Vossler.

"No need for that," Fran murmured, and the engine purred into a higher gear. Balthier barely repressed a chuckle as the atomos glided into the open sky beyond the departure queue, unscathed.

"Brilliant work, Fran. That trick will never get old... Home to the good Marquis, princess? I believe we have business with the man," he drawled.

Ashe gawked at him, white as milk, appalled at his cheer. "I... yes."

"You heard the good lady, Fran," Balthier said, unnecessarily; Fran twitched one ear slightly in amusement and opened the throttle, banking southwest back into the fair sky of Dorstonis.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

_Bhujerba: The Ondore Estate_

Halim Ondore was a new man when the party met him once again; the moment he laid eyes to Ashelia B'Nargin ten years fell from his face.

"Uncle," the princess whimpered, and fled into his arms; he embraced her without hesitation. The warmth between them was palpable. Basch averted his eyes, visibly trying to hide his satisfaction at their reunion. Balthier tutted quietly to himself; knights and their ilk could be such tiresomely predictable creatures.

"Captain Ronsenburg," Ondore rejoined at length, turning to Basch. "I had not dared to hope that you would succeed in your endeavor to liberate Ashe from her captors. I see now that you are indeed to be trusted."

"Slander and treason done in my name cannot hold me from my charge," Basch said, and turned to Ashe. "My duty is to you, My Lady, and to Dalmasca. I pray you will forgive my long absence from your side."

Ashe's expression hardened as she drew back from Ondore's embrace. "To forgive you would be a fallacy..."

"To forgive this man is paramount, Ashelia. He is innocent," Ondore said gravely. "Have you not realized the Empire's hand in your father's murder?"

"The Empire...?" Ashe's eyes softened with confusion, and a strained stillness fell over the room, until only the ticking of the old falcon-head clock above Ondore's desk could be heard. Balthier slumped against the wall and folded his arms, preparing his best somnolently bored expression. Fran slowly rotated her ears, listening hard, her face a mask as the Marquis turned to Basch once more.

"I am led to understand that you have a twin, Captain Ronsenburg."

Basch nodded tersely. "Aye."

"And if I may ask his full name?"

"Noah Gabranth Archadia, formerly fon Ronsenburg."

"He is the same Gabranth of Archadia's Eighth division – intelligence and investigations?"

"He is."

Ondore frowned. "The name Gabranth is not Landisian."

"Our late mother was Archadian. My brother took her name in the wake of Landis' occupation, intending to ally with Archadia's military."

A few terse moments passed. Ashe's eyes flicked from Basch to Ondore, and back again. Ondore folded his hands behind his back and turned – _Heth_ – to Balthier.

"You are an Archadian criminal of some repute, master Balthier. You are familiar with this Gabranth, I trust?"

Balthier blinked lazily and took his sweet time straightening his posture, feigning his contemplation of the question. A chance to expose Noah... he would have to speak carefully. Fran held her breath.

"I won't say that I have much personal experience with the man," Balthier demurred at last, in a sleepy voice. "However, Gabranth is oft discussed in many criminal circles, it's true. He is indeed a Judge of Archades, in Vayne Solidor's employ. Or, so I am told."

Ondore studied him. "Would he be capable of framing the Captain for Lord Raminas' death, do you suppose?"

Balthier straightened, and in spite of all he couldn't keep the conviction from his voice. "Oh, I think him more than capable, sir. I think him guilty."

Ashe looked genuinely suspicious now; even Basch frowned. Ondore raised his eyebrows. "Your certainty intrigues me."

"Gabranth is a leader of Archadian intelligence, and as such would be well trained in espionage. I hardly doubt his capacity for impersonating the good Captain, especially given his unique appearance – he and his brother are as like as two eyes."

Ondore rejoined immediately, startled. "You have seen his face?"

_Time and again, while asleep and awake - As is my damned luck_. "I have; when Fran and I made our exodus from Nalbina, we encountered His Honour interrogating the captain, and with his helm removed. If the two are not family, I am not a thief. He spent a fair amount of time in mockery, and spoke plainly of slaying Raminas himself, with pride. More of interest to me, however, was Gabranth's concern for knowledge of the insurgence... he asked Basch directly the identity of a woman his men had captured, by the name of Amalia. When Basch refused to answer, Gabranth sentenced him to death."

Ashe stiffened.

"Of course, having encountered you in the sewer not even a day past, Princess, I was duly concerned for your welfare." Balthier bowed pointedly. "As a matter of conscience we did our part to liberate the Captain, and to find you – begging your indulgence. I realize now that you weren't particularly keen on being saved. Your warm reception of our party betrayed as much."

Ashe's eyes flashed with irritation, but Ondore nodded solemnly. "You and your associate were reported escapees from Nalbina at the same hour as the Captain. By extension I cannot refute your story; Also, I have confirmed that a live capture order - on all four of your heads - has been issued by Gabranth himself. He has taken vested interest in all of you. Your reputation spreads; Even Ghis now assures me you are all quite dangerous."

Ashe fidgeted, but Balthier sniffed faintly at the thought, amused. "Dangerous enough, when cornered. Left peaceably to our own affairs we're rather charming, actually."

The princess spoke at last. "If your story is true, pirate, I am truly remiss. However I deign to withhold judgment upon Basch's innocence – I am loath to trust the word of a thief."

Balthier bit the inside of his cheek and inclined his head very slightly in mock deference. _Clearly, you're loath to do any number of things, _he did not say.

Ashe turned to Ondore. "Irregardless of my father's murderer, I must speak plain to you, Uncle – I require your aid. Vayne's reach extends too far; as consul of Rabanastre he has seen Dalmasca reduced to little more than a trading-post, and the citizens' autonomy has been all but revoked. Left to his own devices, Vayne Solidor will decimate what remains of Galtea. I must stop him. _We_ must."

Ondore exhaled, returned to his desk. "Dearest Lady Ashe. I must confess I am astonished that you would ask my aid. When I made the announcement not six months hence that you had taken your own life, indeed without investigating the truth of the matter, I had thought you would vilify me utterly for abandoning you. Had I known you had feigned your suicide – had I bothered to seek your whereabouts before Azelas sought me out himself – I might have thought to act differently. But now, Bhujerba is trapped 'neath the hand of Bertralan Ghis, in wake of my ill judgment; Archadia's diplomatic counsel is law, though Bhujerba claims Her own flag. I fear to say it, but my hands are tied... and so are your own."

Ashe's eyes filled with tears. "The noble house of Ondore has aided Dalmasca in war and peace. Through feast and famine we have been allies, and friends. You would shame the faith my mother held in Galtea's strength? You speak of your regret for abandoning me – you would do so again? We must stand against those who would oppress us! We _must _stop Vayne! _Have you entirely no sense?_"

Ondore looked sharply up at her. "Ashelia, you will be still. Please; you embarrass yourself."

Ashe's eyes went dead immediately. Her tears dried as though they had never been there, and rather than flush pink at being scolded she went pale as snow. Balthier blinked, taken aback at her transformation. A flicker of a memory reached him – a fervent cry of protest rising above the crackling of flames. He swallowed hard.

Ondore rose from his desk again, agitated, and walked to the window. "There was a time you wished nothing more than to be in my favor, Ashelia. You made pleas only for ice creams and fond embraces. I had hoped you would stay agreeable in this manner forever; a flower of Dalmasca, unfettered by the worries of your people. But Your Majesty is a woman grown, and with you your worries and ambitions both blossom."

Ashe's lips barely moved. "Halim..."

"I have said once, and will only say once more: my hands are tied. I cannot aid an insurgence. Bhujerba remains neutral to all civilian struggles outside Her borders, by law and decree of Ondore the First. My concern for your welfare aside, you are a mere civilian without the ability to furnish proof of your lineage. Without the Dusk Shard you bear no proof of your birthright, and are by extension powerless. I cannot allow you to continue in this fashion; you will only find your swift defeat."

"Uncle... I beg you..."

Ondore turned his back to her and gazed darkly out the window, over terraces and gardens and the aerodrome beyond. The levity that had come into his eyes when they all had first arrived was gone now. Basch moved to stand at Ashe's side, and Balthier saw him reach for her arm, then draw back again. He had to say something; the woman was like to break out in weeping or shouting again at any moment, and it was growing tiresome indeed.

"If Her Majesty is quite through with her protestations," he drawled, "I would discuss the business proposal you gifted me with at our last meeting, good Marquis."

"Of course," Ondore rejoined, wearily. "Business... yes."

With a look of vacant sorrow, Ashe turned from the desk and began to pace slowly from the room. Basch bowed to Ondore and followed; she quickened her pace to be rid of him. The door closed behind them both, and Balthier leaned against the wall again.

"I mean no disrespect in asking this, but it is of some import to me and mine..." he gestured to Fran, still silent and motionless by the door. "What are your intentions with the business of my identity?"

Ondore turned from the window. "I was correct in my suspicion – you are Ffamran Mid Bunansa of Draklor?"

Balthier glanced at Fran; she listened for the presence of prying ears outside the door and indicated there were none.

"Regrettably so."

"If you are concerned that I will imprison you, or see you imprisoned by another, then be you at ease. Please recall that you have been granted asylum here. No matter your conduct on foreign soil, barring bodily harm to another, you will never see the dungeons of Bhujerba. I give you my word and honor."

Balthier tilted his head, impressed. "My bounty is nearly one million gil. You aren't in the least tempted?"

"I am not," Ondore said, "And I never will be. Selling a man into bondage, no matter his crime, is beyond abhorrent."

When the Marquis met his eyes, Balthier saw only resignation. He exhaled and bowed deeply at the waist.

"I remain at your service, Halim Ondore," he said, "And I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Ondore raised his eyebrows. "You are young," he said, his voice tinted with surprise, "And yet you fear those you flee from. Why?"

"You wouldn't believe my tale if I told it a hundred times," Balthier said, "And I'll spare you the repetition."

"As you wish," Ondore said. "You may remain here for the night, as you please."

"We'll be gone before breakfast," Balthier agreed, and followed Fran out of the room.

* * *

_Later –_

_The Ondore Estate: Guest Parlor_

"He loves her," Fran said.

"I'm sorry?" Balthier buttoned the cuffs of a clean white shirt, took his time lacing the collar.

"The marquis; he loves her."

"Ah, the princess. Yes, of course. He should at least feign such, being her only kin... unfortunate soul."

Fran nodded, and her eyes drifted to the window. "Ondore will truly allow us continued asylum in Kaff Terrace?"

"The princess is restored to his care, so yes, it does seem that way."

"Do you know him well?"

"I beg your pardon?"

She glanced at the door and reverted to Vieran. "Ei'das, e'nr jatrema'sec. Nin'ce bec'tn Marquis?"

_Before... in the military. You never met the Marquis?_

"No," Balthier muttered, pulling the laces of a clean gold and blue vest tight at the small of his back.

"Sr'nis k'ge bect'n drha," she ventured.

_And yet you are known to him._

Balthier scowled, tugged the strings of his vest harder. "Yet another hazard of my popularity."

"Basch grows more suspicious by the day. Should he discover your implication with Gabranth..."

"Please, Fran. I'm well aware that lying is ill advised. Regardless, we can't risk the good captain's enmity at this point. We've come too far. Think a moment – Larsa bears a stone, and Cid holds more still. If it weren't for Basch, we'd be rotting in Nalbina yet. I'd like to keep him happy with us."

Fran frowned.

"Come to think on it," Balthier mused, "We're nearly loose of him anyway. Tomorrow night he and the Princess will return to Rabanastre with Azelas, and the charade will be over."

"Will it be?" Fran murmured. "When we follow the trail Cidolphus has laid, where will it lead? Should we encounter Basch and Ashelia again, their suspicion will redouble, and before long we will have no alliances left."

"I was never fond of keeping alliances, anyway," Balthier drawled, moving to press his lips to her throat. She drew away from him.

"I tire of this," she said. "When will you speak plain to them?"

"A plainspoken pirate? Hn," Balthier mused, almost entertained by the thought. Fran did not smile.

"Tr'fjuc gad'uaten se'beliis?"

Her tone was soft, but her words cut deep. _A duplicitous Judge is better? _

A weight like lead came into Balthier's belly. He had fled Archades an eternity ago, and for what? Maybe he had grown too used to his liberty, too accustomed to the rich shadowed world he had built to remember what he had left behind. But then, how could he forget? An honest man in a den of liars never forgets the first time he is cut down for speaking the truth.

"Call me a fool, Fran... Ka'aban a fjuc're."

_I fear the truth._

Fran moved closer; he allowed her to put her arms around him. "We will wait," she said gently, "And watch. But you cannot run from the truth even as you seek it, my heart."

Fran kissed Balthier's throat, but the touch only irritated him. She was in the right, as usual – and there was nothing he could say that would make either of them feel better. Sensing his frustration, Fran trailed a handful of tiny kisses along the curve of his ear. The touch was tender and dark – Balthier felt his belly shiver in response - but the intention behind the gesture did nothing to soothe his flitting thoughts. He tilted his head away from her, and let her stroke the line of his freshly shaven jaw.

If there were proof that Basch wouldn't kill him, Balthier might lay his situation plain, and even beg the man's aid – but the captain's twin still leered from deep in Balthier's memory, lingering with disparaging eyes and the faintest of knowing smiles. If Basch were to discover the connection between his brother and the pirate, surely all would be for naught.

_A Judge! Nay, you must die for all you have done..._

"Ffamran," Fran whispered, on the faintest breath.

"Ffamran is dead," he said, into the curve of her throat. "But, Heth, I'm tired of this place - Let's get out of here before Ondore changes his mind. I'd rather not crawl through another damned dungeon this month."

* * *

_Fifteen minutes later_

_The Strahl_

Much to Balthier's surprise, his best girl's hatch was wide open.

_Rather sloppy bid at thievery,_ Balthier thought, and gestured for Fran to fall back as he crept up the stair into the ship. Whatever pirate that endeavored to steal his ship was making a remarkable amount of noise; judging by the furtive rustling and occasional beep coming from the cockpit, the poor sod didn't know what he was doing. Balthier glanced round the corner, reaching for a pouch of shot in his pocket.

But the pirate in the captain's chair was in fact no pirate at all. Lady Ashe was bent over the locked control panel, hesitantly prodding buttons and looking decidedly frightened. Balthier pointed the empty rifle at the princess' back and took off the safety. The click announced his presence; Ashe jumped and turned toward him in a flash, her eyes saucers.

"Don't worry, she's not loaded," he drawled, putting the safety back on, "But I make it my policy to threaten hijackers at gunpoint. Why stray from tradition?"

The princess scowled, her frightened eyes narrowing to slits. He smirked calmly in return, holstered the rifle again. "What inspires you to take up piloting, Princess?"

"I will not sit by as the Basilisk destroys Dalmasca. I cannot stay here."

"Can't you? The marquis would keep you perfectly safe. And really, where would you go in a stolen cruiser?"

"I go to retrieve the Dawn Shard. It will prove the nature of my lineage, as I am the only soul left alive who knows where it is hidden."

Balthier felt his stomach clench. Of course there was yet another of these godforsaken shards. No doubt Midlight and Dusk were both tucked away in a lab at Draklor by now. Ashe would bring a third stone into the equation? This would hardly bode well for anyone concerned.

"I see. How convenient for you."

Ashe glowered at his sarcasm. "I require air transport, and your ship will serve my purposes well. I will see it restored to you upon my return."

Sovereign of Dalmasca or no, the woman had gone too far. He crossed his arms, and the casual air dropped out of his voice when he spoke again. "I can't allow you to make off with my ship, highness. Chase after your blasted stones as you like, but if you must steal your transportation, make it someone else's ship, eh?" He turned aside and gestured for her to move ahead of him out of the cockpit, giving a crisp, impatient bow. She stood, but did not make to move past him. Her eyes were shining with a strange nervous defiance, as if she were waiting for him to strike her.

"Steal me."

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're a sky pirate. You make your living in thievery; kidnapping is hardly a distant removal from your usual base exploits."

"I don't know whether to be impressed or offended by your brilliant leap in logic."

"Hold you tongue. I order you to take me West, to the mouth of the Yensan Sandsea."

Annoyed by her imperious tone, Balthier straightened, fleetingly wishing that he'd already told her the truth. Perhaps the hotheaded princess would hear the word of a Judge more readily than that of a pirate?

"I don't take well to orders, as a rule," he told her, "and as I am Archadian by blood, and a free agent by choice, I have no reason to defer to Your Majesty's demands. Now, you will kindly leave my ship, and see to it you don't look over my shoulder for the access codes on your way out this time round."

Ashe didn't so much as flinch. "You will be compensated for your assistance."

"Oh? And what compensation could a deposed royal such as yourself offer a thief?"

"The holy tomb of Dynast-King Raithwall waits beyond the Yensan Sandseas. Should you and your partner accompany myself and Captain Ronsenburg to the tomb, the cache of treasure that lies within is yours."

Balthier gave a low whistle in spite of himself, and turned to look her straight in the eye. Surely she was trying to pull a jest.

"Raithwall, you say?"

"With respect," said a voice from the doorway, "I doubt plying a pirate of Archadia with the holy relics of the Dynast-King will prove useful, my lady."

Ashe and Balthier both turned toward the captain. Basch's eyes were fixed firmly on the princess; it seemed he was ignoring Balthier's presence completely. The pirate lifted his brows.

"'Might I remind you that kidnapping royalty is a capital offense?" Basch challenged.

"Unless there has been some miraculous development that I am yet unaware of, dear Captain, the lady is deposed and presumed dead. Who would think to miss a corpse?"

Basch glowered at Balthier's glibness, but Ashe spoke up, briskly.

"This is my thinking as well. As long as I am thought to be Amalia and not Ashe, I am yet a soldier. This makes me harder to track. Should we fall in with Balthier and Fran, Captain Ronsenburg, we may have better chance of reaching The Shard without meeting interference. Once we are in possession of the shard, ownership of Raithwall's treasure is irrelevant."

Basch reluctantly stood at ease, but drew himself to his full height. "Aye, milady."

"Then it is settled," Fran said, stepping into the room to lean on the doorframe. "We leave immediately, and in low profile, like proper kidnappers. Lady Ashe – might I show you to your cabin?"

Balthier scoffed. Cramped quarters and insufferable company – all for another damned stone. When it rains, it pours.


End file.
